Quotes about change
page 23

Brian W. Aldiss photo

“If you think with your emotions, slight glandular changes are sufficient to revise your entire outlook.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Basis for Negotiations” p. 124
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Starhawk photo
Neil Gaiman photo

“Even the gods cannot change destiny.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Source: Norse Mythology (2017), Chapter 14, “The Death of Balder” (p. 234)

Guity Novin photo
Jonas Salk photo
Yeshayahu Leibowitz photo
Marshall Goldsmith photo
Susan Sontag photo

“Styles change, style doesn't.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Styles, like everything else, change. Style doesn't. - Linda Ellerbee, Move On: Adventures in the Real World (1991), p. 35 G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 0399136231
Misattributed

Barry Boehm photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 5.
Ode to Duty http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww271.html (1805)

A.A. Milne photo
L. Frank Baum photo
Alfred Hitchcock photo

“With just the sweep of a pen, Thomas, you can change the world, all of it.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

Source: Water Street (2006), Prologue, p. 3; spoken by an unknown woman

Elizabeth May photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Václav Havel photo

“Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Vaclav Havel’s human rights legacy an inspiration http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/vaclav-havel-s-human-rights-legacy-inspiration-2011-12-21 Amnesty International (21 December 2011)]

Friedrich Hayek photo
Dorothy Day photo
Henry Moore photo

“The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

1970 and later
Source: Eric Maisel, ‎Ann Maisel (2010) Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions. p. 95

Reginald Heber photo

“Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
But earthly hope, how bright soe’er,
Still fluctuates o’er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as ’t is fair.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

"On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope".
need further publication dates

Caroline Dhavernas photo

“Most reporters I've spoken with want very badly to understand what is happening to her, but the "why" is really very unimportant. That is just not the point of the show. The journey is how she will deal with this situation, and how it will change her life.”

Caroline Dhavernas (1978) Canadian actress

About her character on Wonderfalls, in "'Wonderfalls' Spills Torrent of Wit" by John Crooks at Zap2it.com (2004) http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=151951&wa=wsignin1.0

Steve Jobs photo
Andrew Mason photo
Lin Chia-lung photo

“If we don't speak up, our voices won't be heard in the international community. Even if the decision cannot be changed (Taichung's East Asian Youth Games host city revocation), we need to get more people to understand the truth.”

Lin Chia-lung (1964) Taiwanese politician

Lin Chia-lung (2018) cited in " Taiwan must speak out against China's suppression: Taichung mayor http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201807300034.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 30 July 2018

Francis Maitland Balfour photo
Murasaki Shikibu photo
Brad Paisley photo
Jimmy Buffett photo
Olaudah Equiano photo

“Such a tendency has the slave-trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men—No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! For it raises the owner to a state as far above man as it depresses the slave below it; and, with all the presumption of human pride, sets a distinction between them, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration! Yet how mistaken is the avarice even of the planters? Are slaves more useful by being thus humbled to the condition of brutes, than they would be if suffered to enjoy the privileges of men? The freedom which diffuses health and prosperity throughout Britain answers you—No. When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!—An assertion at once impious and absurd. Why do you use those instruments of torture? Are they fit to be applied by one rational being to another? And are ye not struck with shame and mortification, to see the partakers of your nature reduced so low? But, above all, are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment? Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? […] But by changing your conduct, and treating your slaves as men, every cause of fear would be banished. They would be faithful, honest, intelligent and vigorous; and peace, prosperity, and happiness, would attend you.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. V
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Howard F. Lyman photo
Anthony Giddens photo
John Cage photo

“There is one term of the problem which you are not taking into account: precisely, the world. The real. You say: the real, the world as it is. But it is not, it becomes! It moves, it changes! It doesn’t wait for us to change... It is more mobile than you can imagine. You are getting closer to this reality when you say as it 'presents itself'; that means that it is not there, existing as an object. The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote in 'John Cage, For the Birds: John Cage In Conversation with Daniel Charles', London/New York: Marion Boyars, 1981; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC ), p. 17, note 10
1980s

Georgia O'Keeffe photo

“For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water.
No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.
Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.
Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.”

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 6 (pp. 137-138)

Russell L. Ackoff photo
Ludovico Ariosto photo

“My master ought to have remembered what
A glittering prize can do to bend the will,
Yet at the crucial moment he forgot
And all his fortune changed from good to ill.”

Dovea in memoria avere il signor mio,
Che l'oro e 'l premio ogni durezza inchina;
Ma, quando bisognò, l'ebbe in oblio,
Ed ei si procacciò la sua ruina.
Canto XLIII, stanza 70 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Tawakkol Karman photo

“What obstacle are you facing? Ask God for breakthrough thinking. Don't think about small changes. Think radically.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Paulo Coelho photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Alvin Toffler photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Will Cuppy photo

“Whenever he [Charlemagne] decided to help somebody's morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Charlemagne

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali photo

“I think that Tunisia's achievements over the past two decades are now well known, and are testified to by numerous regional and international organizations and all honest observers. But what interests me in the first place is the feeling of all Tunisians that these achievements have positively changed their life.”

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1936–2019) Tunisian politician

Answering to the question of top Labenese Journalists, about his 2 decades of career, in the interview, (June 2008). http://www.thefreelibrary.com/President+Zine+El+Abidine+Ben+Ali's+interview+with+Mr.+Melhem+Karam,...-a0179997212

Mary Parker Follett photo
Hema Malini photo

“Politics is a jungle where destinies change every evening.”

Hema Malini (1948) Indian actress, dancer and politician

Her reflective note. [Data India, http://books.google.com/books?id=bn9DAAAAYAAJ, 2007, Press Institute of India]

Heather Mills photo
Federica Mogherini photo

“Many Italians suspect that this is our last chance for change.”

Federica Mogherini (1973) Italian politician

On the government of Matteo Renzi, as quoted in "Yearning for Change: Italian Diplomacy Just Got Younger" by Walter Mayr, in Der Spiegel (4 July 2014).

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
José Mourinho photo

“I am Jose Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=791482&sec=europe&cc=3436
2010

Richard Rodríguez photo
Karl Jaspers photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Michel Foucault photo
Ash Carter photo
Tony Blair photo

“Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

European Parliament debates http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20050623+ITEM-004+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN&query=INTERV&detail=4-010
Speech to the European Parliament outlining the priorities of the British Presidency, 23 June 2005.
2000s

Shona Brown photo
Hans von Seeckt photo

“The Weimar Constitution is for me not a noli me tangere; I did not participate in its creation, and it is in its basic principles contrary to my political thinking…I believed that a change of the constitution was approaching, and that I could help towards this by methods which were not unnecessarily to lead through civil war. So far as concerns my attitude towards the international Social Democracy, I have to confess that at the outset I believed in the possibility to winning over part of it to national co-operation; but I have revised this opinion long ago, a long time before our conversation, in so far as the Social Democratic Party is concerned, not the German working class as such…I see clearly that a collaboration with the Social Democratic Party is impossible because it repudiates the idea of military preparedness…I do not consider a Stresemann cabinet viable, not even after its transformation. This lack of confidence I have expressed to the chancellor himself as well as to the president, and I have told them that in the long run I could not guarantee the attitude of the Reichswehr to a government in which it had no confidence…A Stresemann government cannot last without the support of the Reichswehr and of the forces standing behind it.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to von Kahr (2 November 1923), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 117.

Jacques Lipchitz photo
Harold W. Percival photo
Rahm Emanuel photo

“This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

Rahm Emanuel (1959) politician, investment banker, White House Chief of Staff

House Minority Leader John Boehner on Obama's hiring Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, as quoted in San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/06/MN6C13VKH5.DTL&type=politics.
About

Confucius photo
Keir Hardie photo
Fred Polak photo

“Modern technology could advance to the point at which social engineers would be true masters of a complete conformist society which could no longer distinguished from a mass concentration camp. We might ultimately be directed by a superstructure of intelligent machines… Revolutionary changes in the next 30 years would be farther-reaching that many over the past 3.000 years.”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Quote about the future challenges that industrial society faced due to the societal catastrophe, which was considered to be 20 to 50 years away. Cited in: Ian Murray (1972) " Workers told of peril of technology http://www.kwilliam-kapp.de/pdf/Kapp%20in%20NYT%2072.pdf". In: The Times, April 16, 1972

Karl Pilkington photo

“People say having kids is life changing, well that doesn't necessarily mean a good thing, does it? I could take one of my legs off. That would change my life.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

The Moaning of Life, Karl on Kids

Irvin D. Yalom photo

“One of the most important things was from a patient who said to me what a pity it was that he had to wait until now, when he was riddled with death, to learn how to live. And I have used that phrase many times: hoping that if you introduce people, in an appropriate way, to their mortality that might change the way they live and allow them to trivialise the trivia in their life.”

Irvin D. Yalom (1931) American psychotherapist and writer

The grand old man of American psychiatry on what he has learnt about life (and death) in his still-flourishing career, The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/irvin-d-yalom-interview-the-grand-old-man-of-american-psychiatry-on-what-he-has-learnt-about-life-10134092.html

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“For those who labor, I propose to improve unemployment insurance, to expand minimum wage benefits, and by the repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to make the labor laws in all our states equal to the laws of the 31 states which do not have tonight right-to-work measures. And I also intend to ask the Congress to consider measures which, without improperly invading state and local authority, will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest. The third path is the path of liberation. It is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives. A great nation is one which breeds a great people. A great people flower not from wealth and power, but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius. That alone is a Great Society. Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome. We can subdue and we can master these forces—bring increased meaning to our lives—if all of us, government and citizens, are bold enough to change old ways, daring enough to assault new dangers, and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

H.L. Mencken photo
Elbert Hubbard photo

“If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)

Randal Marlin photo

“The specific media my change, but the principles of human nature have remained fairly constant over the millenia.”

Randal Marlin (1938) Canadian academic

Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter One, Why Study Propaganda?, p. 15

James Allen photo
Kent Beck photo

“Refactoring (noun) : a change made to the internal structure of software to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify without changing the observable behavior of the software.
To refactor (verb) : to restructure software by applying a series of refactorings without changing the observable behavior of the software.”

Kent Beck (1961) software engineer

Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 33-43 as cited in: Militiadis Lytras, Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos, Ernesto Damiani (2011) Semantic Web Personalization and Context Awareness. p. 111

Hillary Clinton photo
David Gross photo
Mark Heard photo
Ian Fleming photo
Edmund Burke photo

“We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe (1792)
1790s

Grady Booch photo

“As a noun, design is the named (although sometimes unnamable) structure or behavior of a system whose presence resolves or contributes to the resolution of a force or forces on that system. A design thus represents one point in a potential decision space. A design may be singular (representing a leaf decision) or it may be collective (representing a set of other decisions).
As a verb, design is the activity of making such decisions. Given a large set of forces, a relatively malleable set of materials, and a large landscape upon which to play, the resulting decision space may be large and complex. As such, there is a science associated with design (empirical analysis can point us to optimal regions or exact points in this design space) as well as an art (within the degrees of freedom that range beyond an empirical decision; there are opportunities for elegance, beauty, simplicity, novelty, and cleverness).
All architecture is design but not all design is architecture. Architecture represents the significant design decisions that shape a system, where significant is measured by cost of change.”

Grady Booch (1955) American software engineer

Grady Booch (2006) " On design https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/gradybooch/entry/on_design?lang=en" cited in: Frank Buschmann, ‎Kevlin Henney, ‎Douglas C. Schmidt (2007) Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, On Patterns and Pattern Languages. p. 214

Ward Cunningham photo
Algis Budrys photo
Jaron Lanier photo

“The problem is that in every example we know, a layer that can change fast also can't change very much.”

Jaron Lanier (1960) American computer scientist, musician, and author

"One Half of a Manifesto," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

George Soros photo

“My peculiarity is that I don't have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Soros on Soros (1995)

Ben Carson photo

“Responsible human beings must be concerned about our surroundings and what we will pass on to future generations. However, to use climate change as an excuse not to develop our God-given resources makes little sense.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"CARSON: Expanding our energy resources serves peace" http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/carson-energys-role-in-the-path-to-peace/, The Washington Times (March 25, 2014)