“Novelty pleases all because it is uncommon, taste is refreshed, and a brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence.”
Balthasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, tr. J. Jacobs (London: MacMillan and Co., 1892), §.cclxix, p.162.
The translation is a little clunky.
ReplyDeleteBaby and bathwater spring to mind.
ReplyDeleteNo theory is so firmly believed as what we least know--Montaigne
ReplyDelete