"Many of the commonest assumptions, it seems to me, are arbitrary ones: that the new is better than the old, the untried superior to the tried, the complex more

"Many of the commonest assumptions, it seems to me, are arbitrary ones: that the new is better than the old, the untried superior to the tried, the complex more advantageous than the simple, the fast quicker than the slow, the big greater than the small, and the world is remodeled by 'Man the Architect' functionally sounder and more agreeable than the world as it was before he changed everything to suit his vogues and his conniptions." — E. B. White, in an essay called Coon Tree (1956) I didn't quote the surrounding context from the essay, which itself is quite fun; do read the full essay if you can.