All through history new ideas have been rejected by the majority
who prefer the status quo even though the proposed changes would
actually benefit them. Sometimes I wonder what it took to convince
humans that eating other humans was a no-no; and what it will take for
them to realize how wrong it is to consume the body parts and
secretions of other sentient beings.
These quotations seem to reveal the frustration of those who see
beyond the unquestioned traditions and customs that people follow:
New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any
other reason, but because they are not already common.
John Locke (16321704), English philosopher
What is philosophy but a continual battle, an ever-renewed effort
to transcend the sphere of blind custom and so become transcendental.
Thomas Carlyle (17951881)
Scottish-born English historian, biographer and essayist
It often happens that the universal belief of one age, a belief
from which no one was free or could be free without an extraordinary
effort of genius or courage, becomes to a subsequent age, so palpable
an absurdity, that the only difficulty is to imagine how such an idea
could ever have appeared credible.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a
great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their
modes of thought.
John Stuart Mill (18061873), English author and philosopher
