“No wise man kicks the ladder from beneath him, or obliterates the traces of the road through which he has travelled, or pulls down the memorials he has built by the way side. We cannot get on without linking our present and our future with our past. All reaction is destructive–all progress conservative. When we have destroyed that which the past built up, what reward have we? we are forced to fall back, and have to begin anew”

 

- Anna Jameson, "The Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies."