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)

History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve. – Charles de Gaulle

We need — and should encourage and honour — not only discoverers of facts hitherto unknown but explorers of ideas and rethinkers of values. – Walter Moberly, The Crisis in the University

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