This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage.
Ellen GoodmanRead
Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Traditions shape our thoughts and behaviors, often without us being consciously aware of their influence.
This quote by Ellen Goodman emphasizes the profound impact that traditions have on our lives, acting as unseen forces that guide our beliefs and actions. These deeply ingrained customs and practices often operate in our subconscious, subtly steering our decisions and perspectives, even when we cannot articulate their origins or significance.
Themes
TraditionSubconsciousInfluenceBeliefsCustoms
In practice
Example use cases
This quote would be insightful during a discussion on cultural heritage and its impacts on identity.
More from Ellen Goodman
All quotes βThe central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.
Ellen GoodmanRead
Parents remain our touchstones, fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present.
Ellen GoodmanRead
What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.
Ellen GoodmanRead
My father used to say that if a man fools you once, he's a jerk. If he fools you twice, you're a jerk. Only he didn't use the word "jerk."
Ellen GoodmanRead
There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.
Ellen GoodmanRead
Similar quotes
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Eric HofferRead
We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.
Stanley HauerwasRead
This is who I am: a flyspeck of human vanity in a trillion miles of stone-dead interstellar space; a graceless lump of flesh and fear in a remote desert where nearly everything that I can see or touch is designed to hurt me.
S. C. GwynneRead
I always wanted to write a book about a common food that becomes a commercial commodity and therefore becomes economically important and therefore becomes politically important and culturally important. That whole process is very interesting to me. And salt seemed to me the best example of that, partly because it's universal.
Mark KurlanskyRead
All that hullabaloo about somebody's net worth is just stupid, and it's made my life a lot more complex and difficult.
Sam WaltonRead
If companies can refuse to provide coverage for women, what other objections to the Affordable Care Act will we see based on 'religious grounds'? For that matter, will 'religious freedom' be used as an excuse to discriminate against other minorities and disenfranchised groups across the board? Where will it end?
Al SharptonRead