Lyman Beecher Quotes

… science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization.

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.

If you want to really change something, do not try to fight the existing reality. create a new reality.

The way I look at the world is establishment versus change agents. The establishment is those people who want to keep things the way they are. Change agents are people like me.

The greatest of the changes that science has brought is the acuity of change; the greatest novelty the extent of novelty.

Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don't do anything new.

To innovate is not to reform.

You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness.

Everything here in Europe turns into rottenness--- religion, laws, arts, sciences--- and everything hastens to renew itself in America.

Changes do occur often with such suddenness in ways not foreseen except by isolated thinkers far removed from the consensus of their day.

Every single change is fought by those who would be affected by it.

The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.

The spirit of the age is the very thing a great man changes.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

Be skeptical, question authority, be a rebel. Do not conform and don’t be ordinary. Remember, all human progress is the result of far-sighted people challenging orthodoxy, tradition and rich, powerful, vested interests.

Innovation never comes from the established institutions.

In politics, as in every other department of life, the clashing of thought is sometimes a proof of disease, but always a promise of reform.

Everything new endangers something old. A new machine replaces human hands; a new source of power threatens old businesses; a new trade route wipes out the supremacy of old ports and brings prosperity to new ones. This is the price that must be paid for progress and it is worth it.

Progress is never accepted by everybody.

There are those who say that such research should be stopped by law, alleging that man’s destructive powers are already large enough. So no doubt that the more elderly and ape-like of our prehistoric ancestors objected to the innovation of cooked food and pointed out the grave danger of the use of the newly discovered agency, fire.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

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

We want to challenge the established ideas with new ideas.

We will meet our challenges head on and we will do it by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and corruption. You voted for change; I intend to deliver it. ... I will govern as a reformer.