Theodore Bikel Quotes

It's good to be progressive, but don't shun the good things about tradition.

People tend to believe that to be modern you have to disengage from your heritage, but it's not true.

Changes in the traditional way of building are only permitted if they are an improvement. Otherwise stay with what is traditional, for truth, even if it be hundreds of years old has a stronger inner bond with us than the lie that walks by our side.

I think that at heart I am an old-fashioned Chinese, really I am.

First of all, the most important, that is to learn everything good that has survived from other times, and carefully to watch the bad - and throw it out.

I grew up in a wonderful blend of a lot of old culture.

I'm the proof - you can't throw away tradition.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

It's important to always mix the past with the present. I think that makes it feel more authentic and real.

Stories are one of the means by which a culture preserves its identity.

It's time to realise that tradition is fantastic but if because of tradition and only tradition you lose everyone it's less fantastic so you have to keep some tradition to this sport of course but you also have to live in your century.

I'm a storyteller. I do this for the next generations. They have to know what traditional alpinism is all about.

I know that everything essential and great originated from the fact that the human being had a homeland and was rooted in tradition.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

We have preserved the Book, and the Book has preserved us.

If you plan on continuing a tradition, it might be a good idea to find out just what tradition it is that you intend to continue.

Our roots are clinging, we shouldn't knock down so many old 'buildings.'

We came from many roots, and we have many branches.

The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity.

This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good.

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it.

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

It takes a lifetime to build tradition.

Our philosophy is about reaching back to move forward. We have something different to say with a sensibility that is both old and new.

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.