Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.

When you talk about change, you know what makes it really tough for people is on the one hand you've got tradition, and on the other hand you've got change; in many people's mind, change equals modernization. Tradition, however. I'm a big tradition guy.

Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

Tradition" is very often an excuse word for people who don't want to change.

Those who cling to the past won't give up without a fight.

Creativity and innovation always builds on the past. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it. Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past. Ours is less and less a free society.

Inertia is as powerful a force in society and politics as it is on physics, and effecting change can be demanding and discouraging.

It's good to be progressive, but don't shun the good things about tradition.

When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear.

Fogeydom is the last bastion of the bore and reminiscence is its anthem. It is futile to want the old days back, but that doesn't mean one should ignore the lessons of the visitable past.

I love only extreme novelty or the things of the past.

The idea of a group of elders is that, in past civilizations, they have linked worlds; the other world was also present in this one. There is also the argument that elders have "experience." The problem is that experience teaches fear of change. Experience kills imagination. Experience makes people conservative. What we are facing tomorrow requires the force of imagination, not wisdom from yesterday.

It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.

Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.

Habit creates the appearance of justice; progress has no greater enemy than habit.

All over the world, particularly in the newer nations, young men are coming to power--men who are not bound by the traditions of the past--men who are not blinded by the old fears and hates and rivalries-- young men who can cast off the old slogans and delusions and suspicions.

I'm all for prosperity. It's change I object to.

We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one; it is established, and it is understood.

Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.

Sir, we must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic.

They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.

Scientists are the enemies of tradition , and tradition own all the prisons. - Victor Vigny