Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
Social progress takes effect through the replacement of all institutions by new ones; and since every institution involves the recognition of the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the repudiation of an established duty at every step.
There is nothing so wrong as accepting a thing merely because men who have done things say it should be so.
Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein.
Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.
No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.
The castle which conservatism is set to defend is the actual state of things, good and bad.
[Rousseau] has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and as he scorns to dissemble his contempt of established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him.
Had it not been for the race problem early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born.
Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice To change true rules for odd inventions.
All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.
Great measures are always rested on small precedents.
I've seen what you can do in this grassroots, do-it-yourself world, and I've seen how far that can get you. To be iconic, you still need the gatekeepers to open the doors.
Nostalgia combines regularly with manifest respectability to give credence to old error as opposed to new truth.
People.. especially people in positions of power.. have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don't want to hear that we're on the wrong path, that we've got to shift gears and start thinking differently.
Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.
A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen.
When once a social order is well established, no matter what injustice it involves, those who occupy a position of advantage are not long in coming to believe that it is the only possible and reasonable order.
Ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of this universe.
An ounce of convention is worth a pound of explanation.
Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.
