Change Quotes

We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail (1979)

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent it is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Charles Robert Darwin

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

Quintilian

If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow.

Philip Crosby, Reflections on Quality

Change is good, but dollars are better.

Anonymous

Change does not change tradition. It strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.

Prince Philip of England

Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.

Author Unknown

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Reinhold Niebuhr, in a sermon in 1943

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

The mind has exactly the same power as the hands not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.

Colin Wilson

If people become ecstatic the whole society will have to change, because this society is based on misery. If people are blissful you cannot lead them to war - - To Vietnam, or to Egypt, or to Israel. No. Someone who is blissful will just laugh and say: This is nonsense!

Osho, My Way: The Way of The White Clouds

Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock.

Alvin Toffle

At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

I like less the story that a frog if put in cold water will not bestir itself if that water is heated up slowly and gradually and will in the end let itself be boiled alive, too comfortable with continuity to realize that continuous change at some point may become intolerable and demand a change in behavior.

Charles Handy - The Age of Unreason

Slowness to change usually means fear of the new.

Philip Crosby, Reflections on Quality

In human life, art may arise from almost any activity, and once it does so, it is launched on a long road of exploration, invention, freedom to the limits of extravagance, interference to the point of frustration, finally discipline, controlling constant change and growth.

Susanne Lange

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds; and I very rarely change it.

Margaret Thatche

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Things do not change we change.

Henry David Thoreau

Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change. Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.

Henry Steele Commage

The more things change, the more they are the same.

Alphonse Ka

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Arthur Baldwin

Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed.

Oprah Winfrey

Change starts when someone sees the next step.

William Drayton

We must change in order to survive.

Pearl Bailey

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.

David Letterman

Your food stamps will be stopped effective March, 1992, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.

Greenville County (S. C.) Department of Social Services, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1993

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.

Eugene V. Debs

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

Maya Angelou

Fashion changes, style remains.

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

You can change an outfit, you can outfit change, or both.

Kenneth Cole, fashion show speech

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.

Annie Lennox

The primary purpose of the Data statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3. 141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable Pi can be given that value with a Data statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.

Fortran manual for Xerox Computers

Asking to meet with Italian businessmen instead of government officials. I want to talk to these people because they stay in power and you change all the time.

Nikita Khrushchev

Between eigtheen and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with money, but with actions. Most men buy nothing.

Andre Malraux

A single event can shape our lives or change the course of history.

Deepak Chopra, The Return of Merlin

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.

Shunryu Suzuki