QuoteProject
All experiment is made on a basis of tradition; all tradition is the crystallization of experiment.
Louis Macneice
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Tradition and experimentation are interdependent; traditions evolve from previous experiments.

This quote highlights the cyclical relationship between tradition and experimentation. It suggests that all traditions are formed through past experiments, which in turn provide the foundation for future experiments. In essence, our current understanding and practices are shaped by both our historical attempts to innovate and the lasting influence of those innovations on subsequent generations.

Themes

TraditionExperimentKnowledgeHistoryInnovation

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of cultural heritage, one might use this quote to emphasize how traditions shape our current practices.

More from Louis Macneice

The rules or 'laws' of poetry are only tentative devices, an approximate scheme. There is no Sinaitic recipe for poetry, for the individual poem is the norm.
Louis MacneiceRead
I am not yet born; O fill me with strength against those who would freeze my humanity.
Louis MacneiceRead
Everyone is not able, or inclined, to write poetry in the narrower sense any more than everyone is qualified to take part in a walking race. But just as all of us can and do walk, so all of us can and do use language poetically.
Louis MacneiceRead
I am not yet born; Forgive me For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words When they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, My treason engendered by traitors beyound me, My life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.
Louis MacneiceRead
All that I would like to be is human, having a share_x000D_ in a civilized, articulate and well-adjusted_x000D_ community where the mind is given its due_x000D_ but the body is not distrusted
Louis MacneiceRead

Similar quotes

To say that Christ is the term and motive force of evolution, to say that he manifests himself as 'evolver,' is implicitly to recognize that he becomes attainable in and through the whole process of evolution.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The sick man must follow his illness to the place where it is treated... He is set aside in one of the technical and secret zones (hospitals, prisons, refuse dumps) which relieve the living of everything that might hinder the chain of production and consumption, and which repair and select what can be sent back up to the surface of progress.
Michel De CerteauRead
To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: They have need only of common sense.
Baron D'HolbachRead
We are born of light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light.
Louis KahnRead
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
Thomas AquinasRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.