Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future.

The best advice I can give you is this. Church tradition - especially when they do not run counter to the Faith - are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

tradition is only democracy extended through time.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

You know the past only in the present and as part of the present.

The only way forward is to keep bringing yourself back to the present moment.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

I always tell my Western friends that it is best to keep your own tradition. Changing religion is not easy and sometimes causes confusion. You must value your tradition and honor your own religion.

Tradition is not good simply because it is tradition. It is for what it has given us and only so long as an alternative does not prove by its effect that it is better.

The past may show the right way to behave if you live in the past, Stil, but circumstances change.

Modern formulations are necessary even in defense of very ancient truths. Not because of any alleged anachronism in the old ideas – the Beatitudes remain the essential statements of the Western code – but because the idiom of life is always changing

Let the past abolish the past when — and if — it can substitute something better.