Francis Galton Quotes

New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young.

The history of human growth is at the same time the history of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn, and the brighter dawn has always been considered illegal, outside of the law.

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.

These days, the problem isn't how to innovate; it's how to get society to adopt the good ideas that already exist.

Fear of the unknown... They are afraid of new ideas... They are loaded with prejudices, not based upon anything in reality, but based on... "If something is new, I reject it immediately because it's frightening to me." What they do instead is just stay with the familiar. You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe, are the most mysterious.

No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat wat was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life.

New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.

These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here

Men judge of Christians by taking as fair samples those that lie rotten on the ground.

Idea-assassins rush forward to kill any new suggestion on the grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, no matter how absurd.

All scientists know of colleagues whose minds are so well equipped with the means of refutation that no new idea has the temerity to seek admittance. Their contribution to science is accordingly very small.

In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that its growth keeps pace with a widening range of consciousness, and that each step forward is an extremely painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up the smallest particle of unconsciousness. He has a profound fear of the unknown. Ask anybody who has ever tried to introduce new ideas!

They're afraid of change, and we must change. They're afraid of the young, and we are the young. They're afraid of music, and music is our life. They're afraid of books, and knowledge, and ideas. They're most afraid of our magic.

Progress is unstoppable. It is a drumbeat to which we must all march. Technology helps and good ideas spread – these are two lows of nature. If you don’t let technology help you, if you resist good ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood! I am utterly convinced of this.

It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by the readiness with which they fit into his general conceptions, into the picture of the world which he regards as modern or advanced.

People have judged you; you have accepted their idea without any scrutiny. And you are suffering from all kinds of people's judgments, and you are throwing those judgments on other people. And this game has become out of proportion. The whole humanity is suffering from it. If you want to get out of it, the first thing is: Don't judge yourself.

It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.

Resistance is always possible! But we must engage in resistance first of all by developing the idea of a technological culture.

When we really need to work hard to make sure that these ideas about constructive social change culturally, ecologically and politically, come to pass. And that's only going to happen if people support the leadership, because the same power structures are still in place, and it's not in their best interests to change.

I presume that few who have paid any attention to the history of the Mathematical Analysis, will doubt that it has been developed in a certain order, or that that order has been, to a great extent, necessary -- being determined, either by steps of logical deduction, or by the successive introduction of new ideas and conceptions, when the time for their evolution had arrived.

Every new fad or fashion at once has its denouncers from the pulpit, platform, professor's chair.

Every original idea is first ridiculed, then vigorously attacked, and finally taken for granted.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.

Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.