A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
Interpretation
Innovative ideas often face skepticism before gaining acceptance.
This quote by William James emphasizes the typical journey of new ideas in society, illustrating that they are often initially met with ridicule and dismissal. Over time, as the idea proves its value or necessity, it gradually becomes integrated into mainstream thought, demonstrating the evolving nature of societal understanding and acceptance of innovation.
In practice
In a discussion about technology startups, this quote can highlight how new apps often face initial skepticism.
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.
You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.
It is easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song, but the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, and it always comes with years, and the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through the tears.
I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.
No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.
Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
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