“It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.”

“Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition that really suits them. This, they say, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so great a shock that nothing can survive it. Every change is a shock; every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognize a past and a present as resembling one another. ”

“Things change when you're not in danger anymore.”

“Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when the presume to anticipate custom.”

“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”

“Believing everyone is dangerous, but believing nobody is more dangerous.”