Dean Acheson Quotes

The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally.

You can't forge a new sort of consensus, you can't forge public opinion, by following public opinion.

It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

In modern Western culture, the new is considered better than the old, and thus change itself is considered good; in tradition bound Arab cultures, the old is considered better than the new, and thus the retention of the existing order is good.

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

We have no precedents to guide us, and that is a glorious thing, for precedents, like other guides are disposed to grow tyrannical and refuse to let us do anything on our own initiative. Life grows wearisome in the countries where precedents and conventionality is rule and nothing can happen unless it has happen before.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common

… a country's laws are written upon paper, and that its customs are engraved upon brass. One may play with the one, but not with the other. It is less risky for a stranger to dance upon our Constitution in the public square than to affront one of our solidified customs. The one is merely eminently respectable, the other is sacred.

One who accepts the general ideas of his time gets along smoothest, but he does least for progress.

People, a lot of times, don't like what's different. When it's something different out there, the majority of people will be like 'aww, that's wack!' but if it's regular, plain or a straight through flow, it's easier for them to adapt to, because everyone likes the normal.

How is it possible that in just the last ten years all of these things which were taboo throughout our culture, throughout the culture, things that were taboo are now not only normal but celebrated, and people who were not really supportive of them are called kooks and the new weirdos?

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.

The new is threatening to those who have mastered the old.

Tradition is laziness.

My views are heretical to people who believe in political correctness.

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

Americans have mastered the art of living with the unacceptable.

In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.

The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, 'We've always done it that way,' I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.

Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. ...Innovation is bad form.

The urge to break with a tradition is only appropriate when you're dealing with an outdated, troublesome tradition: I never really thought about that because I take the old-fashioned approach of equating tradition with value (which may be a failing). But whatever the case, positive tradition can also provoke opposition if it's too powerful, too overwhelming, too demanding. That would basically be about the human side of wanting to hold your own.

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.