When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.
Interpretation
New ideas often face skepticism, then indifference, and eventually acceptance as common knowledge.
This quote by William James highlights the typical trajectory of how people respond to new ideas or innovations. Initially met with doubt and disbelief, these concepts eventually gain recognition and acceptance, only for society to downplay their significance once they become mainstream. This reflects the human tendency to resist change and the gradual acknowledgment of the profound impact new ideas can have.
In practice
In a discussion about innovative technology, one might say, 'As William James noted, when a thing is new, people often dismiss it.'
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.
To be unforgiving is like to drink poison and wait for someone else to die!! Rev. TD Jakes (have I said how much I love ya!)
It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.
Common sense is something that everyone needs, few have, and none think they lack.
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.'
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