quotations about change
All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some people used to think.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
foreword, Tales from Earthsea
The sad thing is that, even though we know our lives aren't working in certain areas, we are still afraid to change. We are locked into our comfort zone, no matter how self-destructive it may be. Yet, the only way to get out of our comfort zone and to be free of our problems and limitations is to get uncomfortable.
ROBERT ANTHONY
Beyond Positive Thinking
People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.
LAWRENCE BLOCK
In the Midst of Death
The architecture of change involves the design and construction of new patterns, or the reconceptualization of old ones, to make new, and hopefully more productive, actions possible.
ROSABETH MOSS KANTER
The Change Masters
It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Vague Thoughts on Art
The world's a scene of changes, and to be
Constant, in Nature were inconstancy.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Inconstancy
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
JAMES BALDWIN
Partisan Review, Fall 1956
When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
EDWARD ALBEE
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm not sure who the first person was who said that. Probably Shakespeare. Or maybe Sting. But at the moment, it's the sentence that best explains my tragic flaw, my inability to change. I don't think I'm alone in this. The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it's kind of everyone's flaw. Staying exactly the same for as long as possible, standing perfectly still ... it feels safer somehow. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar.
EPHRAM BROWN
"My Brother's Keeper", Everwood
Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it goes down. But everytime that happens, what do you get? You get a new day. You get a new one. When you breathe, you inhale and you exhale. But every single time that you do that, you're a little bit different then the one before. We're always changing. And its important to know that there are some changes you can't control and that there are others you can.
DAN DUNNE
Half Nelson
Nothing lasts. That's what makes everything ... so precious.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kéramos
The very word "change" has changed. When I was young--and not just because I was young--we looked forward with confident impatience to change. Planned, controlled, beneficent change would continue to clear slums, sweep up the remains of empire, raise living and educational standards, tidy away--firmly but kindly--the last aboriginals who still raved about martial glory or the pride of wealth. Now, as it seems to me, change is set almost exclusively in the minor key, change seen overwhelmingly as loss.
NEAL ASCHERSON
"Chords of Identity in a Minor Key", Games with Shadows
When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well let us realize
Oh, that a change can only come
When we stand together as one, yeah, yeah, yeah
MICHAEL JACKSON & LIONEL RICHIE
"We Are the World"
You can't change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world
DEPECHE MODE
"New Dress"
Everything is the same as always.
PETER WEISS
The Tower
Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
BILLY JOEL
"Just the Way You Are"
You don't have to love change to be successful, but you need to be willing to accept it. Change is a catalyst for personal growth. It gets you out of a rut, it gives you a fresh start, and it affords you an opportunity to reevaluate your direction. If you resist change, you're really resisting success. Learn flexibility, or learn to like living with your failures.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Motivated to Succeed
Change in all things is sweet.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France