Emerson

"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration had broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned tomorrow; there is not a literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned... The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits."