A Quote by Octavio Paz

The characteristic feature of modernity is criticism: what is new is set over and against what is old, and it is this constant contrast that constitutes the continuity of tradition.

Octavio Paz

Quote Topics

Against Characteristic Constant Continuity Contrast Criticism Feature Modernity New Old Over Set Tradition

Quote Author

Octavio Paz
Mexican - Poet
March 31, 1914 - April 19, 1998

Whether he is aware of it or not, every human being dwells in tradition and history. Human memory is this constant dwelling in tradition. It constitutes that fundamental human characteristic of historicity.

Medard Boss

The modernity of yesterday is the tradition of today, and the modernity of today will be tradition tomorrow.

Jose Andres

Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.

Octavio Paz

You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.

Theodore Bikel

The most violent revolutions in an individuals beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and ones own biography remain untouched. New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity.

William James

The constant influx of new cultures, new ideas and new ways of looking at old problems is a big part of the reason why America has been the most dynamic economy in the world for well over a century.

Gary Locke

The liquid state of modernity is corrosive to continuity.

Samuel Wilson

But I think the bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old concepts.

Henry L. Stimson

The people of Iran have been battling against consecutive conflicts between tradition and modernity for over 100 years... some have tried and are trying to see the world through the eyes of their predecessors and to deal with the problems and difficulties of the existing world by virtue of the values of the ancients... many others...seek to go forth in step with world developments and not lag behind the caravan of civilization, development and progress.

Shirin Ebadi

I think the media in America have been absolutely fantastic about the rise of Trump, they've kept a firm eye on the ball: this constitutes democracy, this constitutes transparency, this constitutes fairness, this constitutes the way to behave in a civic society, this constitutes fascism, this constitutes authoritarianism. They're drawing that line, and they're calling him out every time. That's really what needs to happen, and you just have to do that.

Irvine Welsh

If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live. Old families, old customs, old styles survive because they are fit to survive. The guarantee of continuity is quality. Submerge the good in a flood of the new, and good will come back to join the good which the new brings with it. Old-fashioned hospitality, old-fashioned politeness, old-fashioned honor in business had qualities of survival. These will come back.

Eddie Rickenbacker

Home. It's being new and old all rolled into one. Measuring your new against old friends, old ways, old places, Knowing that as long as the old survives, you can keep changing as much as you want without the nightmare of waking up to a total stranger.

Gloria Naylor

I detest tradition for tradition's sake; the half-alive; that which is not real. I feel no hatred of individuals, but of customs, traditions; superstitions that go against life, against truth, against the reality of experience, against the spontaneous living out of the sense of wonder-of fresh experience, freshly seen and communicated.