Quotes about change

„People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it all to remain the same.“

—  Paulo Coelho, book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

„If it is a dying craft we can't do anything about it. Civilisation moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era.“

—  Hayao Miyazaki Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka 1941

on the topic of hand-drawn animation (2005) The Guardian article http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/14/japan.awardsandprizes
On Animation

„My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device entirely in my mind.“

—  Nikola Tesla, book My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

My Inventions (1919)
Source: My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Context: The moment one constructs a device to carry into practice a crude idea, he finds himself unavoidably engrossed with the details of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle.… I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.

„Tradition takes time to change. But it changes, all right. All that I have to do is to keep trying.“

—  Bismillah Khan Indian musician 1916 - 2006

After this he was invited to play the Shehnai solo on the All India Radio
Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

„I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song.“

—  Tommy Lee American drummer 1962

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

„And the ability of citizens to organize and advocate for change -- that's the oxygen upon which democracy depends.“

—  Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

„Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but sometimes it's never even there in the first place.“

—  Colum McCann, book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: All Hail and Hallelujah

„When things change a lot, some guys handle the change better than others, but that doesn’t mean the guys that take longer to get the hang of things are suddenly slow drivers!“

—  Niki Lauda Austrian former Formula 1 racing driver 1949 - 2019

„One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.“

—  Pam Brown Australian poet 1948

„The past is behind you and there is nothing you can do to change it. However, you are in total control of your future.

RJ Intindola – 1980 *“

—  RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

„Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, "We've always done it this way." I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.“

—  Grace Hopper American computer scientist and United States Navy officer 1906 - 1992

Unsourced variant: The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way."
The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper (1987)

„It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.“

—  Miles Davis American jazz musician 1926 - 1991

„Marxist philosophy holds that the law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe. This law operates universally, whether in the natural world, in human society, or in man's thinking. Between the opposites in a contradiction there is at once unity and struggle, and it is this that impels things to move and change. Contradictions exist everywhere, but they differ in accordance with the different nature of different things. In any given phenomenon or thing, the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and transitory, and hence relative, whereas the struggle of opposites is absolute.“

—  Mao Zedong Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China 1893 - 1976

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 马克思主义的哲学认为，对立统一规律是宇宙的根本规律。这个规律，不论在自然界、人类社会和人们的思想中，都是普遍存在的。矛盾着的对立面又统一，又斗争，由此推动事物的运动和变化。矛盾是普遍存在的，不过按事物的性质不同，矛盾的性质也就不同。对于任何一个具体的事物说来，对立的统一是有条件的、暂时的、过渡的，因而是相对的，对立的斗争则是绝对的。

„While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.“

—  Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

„Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.“

—  Haruki Murakami, book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter One

„What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.“

—  Maya Angelou, book Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

„Evolution is an undeniable process, therefore changes will occur in the future. "for sure", But I can’t tell you now what will happen with my work, because I don’t even know what course I will take.“

—  Clandestine Culture American artist 1970

http://culturedesigners.com/street-artist-profile-clandestine-culture/

„Your own nature will triumph. We are all born with our natures… And I think back over my life and I realize that my own nature -the core me- essentially hasn't changed over all these years. When I wake up in the morning, for those first few moments before I remember where I am or when I am, I still feel the same way I did when I woke up at the age of five.“

—  Douglas Coupland, book Life After God

Life After God (1994)

„We are the change we have been waiting for.“

—  Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961