Tradition is democracy extended through time.

Today would be G.K.Chesterton's 129th birthday. In his memory, one of his best-known theological statements:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.
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