[…] each [dialect] does […] remain nearly the same; this is what maintains the prevailing identity of speech so long as the identity of the speaking community is maintained […] This, then, is the grand conservative force in the history of language; if there were no disturbing and counteracting forces to interfere with its workings, every generation to the end of time would speak as its predecessors had done.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.32-33

[…] the instrumentality of the tendency to ease and abbreviation, a tendency which […] makes truly for decay; the conservative force, the strictness of traditional transmission, has not been sufficient to resist its inroads.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.105

After a certain stage of advance in definite and established expression is reached, the conservative forces, depending on acquired habits of speech, are too strong to be overcome, and the language goes on forever on the course which the directing hands of the earlier generations have determined.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.224-225