Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

To be dragged in the wake of the passive flock and to pass a hundred and one times beneath the shears of the shepherd, or to die alone like a brave eagle on a rocky crag of a great mountain: that is the dilemma. – Praxedis Guerrero, Regeneración, 1911 February 18th

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right. – Henry Bessemer (discovered new method of producing steel)