I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations. – Mary Wortley Montagu

People still retain the errors of their childhood, their nation, and their age, long after they have accepted the truths needed to refute them. – Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1794

The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions. – Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871