Experience teaches that men are often so much governed by what they
are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious
improvements, in the most ordinary occupations, are adopted with hesitation,
reluctance, and by slow gradations. Men would resist changes, so long
as even a bare support could be ensured by an adherence to ancient
courses, and perhaps even longer.
-- Alexander Hamilton
Related:
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the
greatest complexity can seldom accept even the simplest and most
obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity
of conlusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleages,
which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven,
thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives....