Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or that our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than we suspect of what we think. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Yield to all and you will soon have nothing to yield. – Aesop, “The Man and His Two Wives,” Fables

The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them. – Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 1932 July 30th

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)