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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the value of enduring qualities in traditions and customs that have proven their worth over time.
Eddie Rickenbacker suggests that the longevity of certain traditions, families, and customs indicates their inherent value and quality. He argues that while new ideas and styles flood society, the fundamental, quality aspects of the old will eventually resurgence, as they possess the qualities essential for survival and continuity. Traditions like hospitality, politeness, and honor are examples of qualities that withstand the test of time and will reemerge even amidst the influx of new trends.
In practice
During a family gathering, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of maintaining family traditions.
When I was racing, I had learned that you can't set stock in public adoration or your press clippings. By the time I was 26, I'd heard crowds of 100,000 scream my name, but a week later they couldn't remember who I was. You're a hero today and a bum tomorrow - hero to zero, I sometimes say.
A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being. For such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops a right understanding, and sees ever more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss, fume, worry, and grieve. He remains poised, steadfast, serene.
I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.
True greatness is when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier-when it's spelled with a lower case letter.
True understanding is possible only when we are fully conscious of our thought, not as an operative observer on this thought, but completely and without the intervention of a choice.
What you're thinking, what you're saying, what you're doing, is having an impact on you and the people around you
The reality of truth is not to be bought, to be sold, to be repeated; it cannot be caught in books. It has to be found from moment to moment, in the smile, in the tear, under the dead leaf, in the vagrant thought, in the fullness of love.
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