Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Resisting change and new ideas

From The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant, and plenty applicable to the investment process and the search for new investment ideas:
Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace.... So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it—perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race.... Out of this tension...comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole.