John Milton Quotes

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

As beautiful as simplicity is, it can become a tradition that stands in the way of exploration.

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

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

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.

For every person who can imagine a possibility there are tens of thousands who are stuck in the greased grooves of history.

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

Tradition is laziness.

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.

You're more likely to drown in the sea of sameness than get eaten by a shark while navigating new waters.

He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth.

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.

Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.

One must not hesitate to innovate and change with the times. The leader who stands still is not progressing, and he will not remain a leader for long.

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.

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.

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

Every step of progress means a duty repudiated, and a scripture torn up.

Habit with him was all the test of truth; It must be right: I've done it from my youth.

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

The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.

A leader without the vision, to strive to improve things, is no good. Then you will just stay put, you won't progress.

Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.

I am now going to make you a gift that will stay with you the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, every time you say, "We've always done it that way," my ghost will appear and haunt you for twenty-four hours.

All adventuring is rash, and all innovations dangerous. But not nearly so dangerous as stagnation and dry rot. From grooves, cliques, clichés and resignation - Good Lord deliver us!