Alexander Pope Quotes

I am a traditionalist, and I'm an innovator. Most of what I do is to weigh change and legislate to the best of my ability on what should change and what should not. Do I have a respect for tradition? Of course I do. Do I have a blind belief in it? No.

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.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

We need to open up the future. We also need to keep everything valuable from the past.

You have to be very careful how you insert new stuff, 'cause people want to hear the old stuff. It's like cooking, you know? You can't put too many peppers into the eggs... otherwise it's going to be distasteful.

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

There is danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism.

Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.

What was good enough for my father is good enough for me" is a treasured English axiom which, if strictly carried out, would have kept us to wooden ploughs and water clocks. In these days we need to be inoculated with some of the nervous energy of the Americans.

What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand still whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone, you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change.

… people who have built a business doing it the old way think it would be better if things could be more stable for longer periods of time. But you have to remember, new inventions are not inherently disruptive. Invention is only disruptive if customers say, “Hey, I like this better than the old way”.

We should not fear what is new, but we should not throw out that which is in the past but is still valuable.

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

The game's evolving quickly, man, and somebody's gotta be trying some new stuff.

There are always people who are into the old way of doing things. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, but things change - nothing stays the same. If you can stay true to yourself, you're always going to be legendary.

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.

I'm in favor of progress; it's change I don't like.

I think continuity is a good thing. But change is sometimes good, too.

Hold fast to the best of the past and move fast to the best of the future.

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

Our fathers valued change for the sake of its results; we value it in the act.