Quotes about change
page 26

Van Jones photo
Richard von Mises photo

“The whole financial basis of insurance would be questionable if it were possible to change the relative frequency of the occurrence of the insurance cases (deaths, etc.) by excluding, for example, every tenth one of the insured persons, or by some selection principal.”

Richard von Mises (1883–1953) Austrian physicist and mathematician

First Lecture, The Definition of Probability, p. 26
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

Neil Young photo

“There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Helpless, from Déjà Vu (1970)
Song lyrics, With Crosby, Stills & Nash

Rutherford B. Hayes photo
John P. Kotter photo
Ernst Mayr photo
Michael Jordan photo

“If we all work together, we can foster greater understanding, positive change and create a more peaceful world for ourselves, our children, our families and our communities.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Michael Jordan: ‘I can no longer stay silent’ http://theundefeated.com/features/michael-jordan-i-can-no-longer-stay-silent/, The Undefeated (July 25, 2016)

Ray Comfort photo
Charles Lyell photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Huston Smith photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo
Steve Jobs photo
Colin Moulding photo

“The scapegoat blood spilled
Spittled and grilled it crackled and spat
And children grew fat on the meat
Change must be earnt”

Colin Moulding (1955) English bassist, songwriter and vocalist

"Sacrificial Bonfire"
Skylarking (1986)

Samuel Johnson photo
Arnold Toynbee photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo

“Eventually there was a split between my parents about me. My mother obviously knew what was going on with me and the girls my friends lined up. She never came out and said anything directly, but she let me know she was concerned. Things were different between me and my father. He assumed that when I was eighteen, I would just go into the Army and they would straighten me out. He accepted some of the things my mother condemned. He felt it was perfectly all right to make out with all the girls I could. In fact, he was proud I was dating the fast girls. He bragged about them to his friends. 'Jesus Christ, you should see some of the women my son's coming up with'. He was showing off, of course. But still, our whole relationship had changed because I'd established myself by winning a few trophies and now had some girls. He was particularly excited about the girls. And he liked the idea that I didn't get involved. 'That's right, Arnold', he'd say, as though he'd had endless experience, 'never be fooled by them'. That continued to be an avenue of communication between us for a couple of years. In fact, the few nights I took girls home when I was on leave from the Army, my father was always very pleasant and would bring out a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/067122879X (1977), New York: Simon & Schuster.
1970s, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (1977)

Charles Mackay photo

“If happy I and wretched he,
Perhaps the king would change with me.”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

"Differences" in The Collected Songs of Charles Mackay (1859).

Hillary Clinton photo
Václav Havel photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo

““Don’t tell me. It changed your life.” I was smiling.
She smiled back. “It didn’t even change my mind.””

Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author

Divided by Infinity (p. 180)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)

Thomas Hardy photo
Dion Boucicault photo
Heidi Klum photo

“Sexy for me is a curvy woman — doesn't have to be skinny, which I hate anyway. I'm glad [the fashion industry] is changing slowly a little bit now to get more into the boobs and hips again.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

In an interview for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Special 1998.

Pauline Kael photo
Kamo no Chōmei photo
Peter M. Senge photo

“As a believer is changed, receiving a glorified body, so similarly, the earth is changed into a new earth, unstained by sin.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 97

Malala Yousafzai photo
Sandra Fluke photo
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis photo

“Because demography is concerned with human affairs and human populatlons it is possible, in principle, to consider demography as a sub-field of many other subjects. It provided the scope of any particular subject-field like anthropology, genetics, ecology, economics, sociology, etc., and is defined in a sufficiently comprehensive manner. While not denying the possibility of considering demography as a sub-field of one or another subject, at least for certain special purposes, it is suggested that demography should be logically viewed as the totality of convergent and inter-related factors and topics which (although these could be, spearately, the concern of many difl'erent subjects like genetics and anthropology, sociology, education, psychology. economics, social and political affairs etc.) jointly, together with their mutual inter-actions, form the determinants as well as the consequences of growth (or decline), changes in composition, territorial movements, and social mobility of population in different geographical regions or in the world as a whole, at any given period of time, or over difl'erent periods of time. Such a view would supply an aggregative, inter-related, and mutually interacting system of all those factors which have any influence over, or are influenced by, demographic or population changes over space and time.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972) Indian scientist

Quote, Professor P.C. Mahalanobis and the Development of Population Statistics in lndia

George Ohsawa photo

“Macrobiotic living is the process of changing ourselves so that we can eat anything we like without fear of becoming ill; it enables us to live a joyful life during which we can achieve anything we choose.”

George Ohsawa (1893–1966) twentieth century Japanese philosopher

Source: Essential Ohsawa - From Food to Health, Happiness to Freedom - Understanding the Basics of Macrobiotics (1994), p. 82

Billy Joel photo
Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma photo
Alex Salmond photo

“Change is what political leadership is about.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Third Session of Parliament (June 30, 2007)

Bell Hooks photo
Zoran Đinđić photo
John Scalzi photo
James Branch Cabell photo
Jane Roberts photo
John Galsworthy photo

“Is not the training of an artist a training in the due relation of one thing with another, and in the faculty of expressing that relation clearly; and, even more, a training in the faculty of disengaging from self the very essence of self — and passing that essence into other selves by so delicate means that none shall see how it is done, yet be insensibly unified? Is not the artist, of all men, foe and nullifier of partisanship and parochialism, of distortions and extravagance, the discoverer of that jack-o'-lantern — Truth; for, if Truth be not Spiritual Proportion I know not what it is. Truth it seems to me — is no absolute thing, but always relative, the essential symmetry in the varying relationships of life; and the most perfect truth is but the concrete expression of the most penetrating vision. Life seen throughout as a countless show of the finest works of Art; Life shaped, and purged of the irrelevant, the gross, and the extravagant; Life, as it were, spiritually selected — that is Truth; a thing as multiple, and changing, as subtle, and strange, as Life itself, and as little to be bound by dogma. Truth admits but the one rule: No deficiency, and no excess! Disobedient to that rule — nothing attains full vitality. And secretly fettered by that rule is Art, whose business is the creation of vital things.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)

“Death is real. Death changes things. Everything else is filler, merely a message from our sponsor.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 16

Ryan Adams photo

“Note to self: don't change for anyone”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Note to Self: Don’t Die
29 (2005)

John Hagee photo
Mau Piailug photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo

“We are a little piece of continual change, looking at an infinite quantity of continual change.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 7

Tony Benn photo

“We have confused the real issue of parliamentary democracy, for already there has been a fundamental change. The power of electors over their law-makers has gone, the power of MPs over Ministers has gone, the role of Ministers has changed. The real case for entry has never been spelled out, which is that there should be a fully federal Europe in which we become a province. It hasn't been spelled out because people would never accept it. We are at the moment on a federal escalator, moving as we talk, going towards a federal objective we do not wish to reach. In practice, Britain will be governed by a European coalition government that we cannot change, dedicated to a capitalist or market economy theology. This policy is to be sold to us by projecting an unjustified optimism about the Community, and an unjustified pessimism about the United Kingdom, designed to frighten us in. Jim quoted Benjamin Franklin, so let me do the same: "He who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary security deserves neither safety nor liberty." The Common Market will break up the UK because there will be no valid argument against an independent Scotland, with its own Ministers and Commissioner, enjoying Common Market membership. We shall be choosing between the unity of the UK and the unity of the EEC. It will impose appalling strains on the Labour movement… I believe that we want independence and democratic self-government, and I hope the Cabinet in due course will think again.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech given in the Cabinet meeting to discuss Britain's membership of the EEC, as recorded in his diary (18 March 1975), Against the Tide. Diaries 1973-1976 (London: Hutchinson, 1989), pp. 346-347.
1970s

Jeremy Corbyn photo

“I say thank you in advance to us all working together to achieve great victories, not just electorally for Labour but emotionally for the whole of our society to show we don't have to be unequal, it doesn't have to be unfair, poverty isn't inevitable, things can and they will change. Thank you very much.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/sep/12/jeremy-corbyns-victory-speech-as-labour-leader-video Jeremy Corbyn’s victory speech as Labour leader (11 September 2015).
2000s

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“This one thing remains: faith; one feels instinctively that many things are changing and that everything will change. We are living in the last quarter of a century which will end again in an enormous revolution.... we shall certainly not live to see the better times of pure air and the refreshing of the old society after those big storms. We are still in the closeness but the following generations will be able to breathe in freely.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp Belgium, Winter 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 451), p. 38
1880s, 1886

Anthony Burgess photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Tina Fey photo
William O. Douglas photo

“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Letter to Young Lawyers Section of the Washington State Bar Association (10 September 1976), The Douglas Letters : Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas (1987), edited by Melvin I. Urofsky and Philip E. Urofsky, p. 162
Other speeches and writings

Ron Paul photo
Fiona Apple photo
Albert Einstein photo

“I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality.
We are … all aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday-Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing ("real") should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow "exist" independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend the type of measurement carried out in the part of space A; it should also be independent of whether or not a measurement is made in A.
If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.
However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I don't see at all what physics is supposed to be describing. For what is thought to be a "system" is after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about parts.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"What must be an essential feature of any future fundamental physics?" Letter to Max Born (March 1948); published in Albert Einstein-Hedwig und Max Born (1969) "Briefwechsel 1916-55"<!-- p. 223 Nymphenburger, Munich-->, and in Potentiality, Entanglement and Passion-at-a-Distance: Quantum Mechanical Studies for Abner Shimony, Volume Two edited by Robert Cohen, Michael Horn, and John Stachel (1997), p. 121 http://books.google.com/books?id=DsNoIcQemTsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false
1940s

Jacques Herzog photo
Eric Frein photo
John Salley photo
David Morrison photo
Charlotte Perkins Gilman photo
Franz Marc photo

“The harvest of your Summer [1910] is displayed on our walls. I like some of them terrifically. The 'certainty' with which most of it is done makes me feel ashamed of myself. The thousand steps that I need to take for a picture are of no advantage, as I sometimes foolishly used to think. Things must change.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to August Macke, Nov. 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 128
Franz Marc is reacting on Macke who focused in his exhibited works strongly on the independent power of color
1905 - 1910

Warren Farrell photo
Lois Duncan photo

“I understand the craft of writing, because it’s who and what I am. The commercial world of publishing, both in the past and today, is an ongoing mystery to me. Fads are constantly changing.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

On writing and publishing, interview with Megan Abbott (2011)
2003–2016

David Cameron photo

“One of the tasks that we clearly have is to rebuild trust in our political system. Yes, that's about cleaning up expenses, yes, that's about reforming parliament, and yes, it's about making sure people are in control and that the politicians are always their servants and never their masters.
But I believe it's also something else — it's about being honest about what government can achieve. Real change is not what government can do on its own, real change is when everyone pulls together, comes together, works together, when we all exercise our responsibilities to ourselves, our families, to our communities and to others. And I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain, one where we don't just ask what are my entitlements but what are my responsibilities, one where we don't ask what am I just owed but more what can I give, and a guide for that society that those that can should and those who can't we will always help.
I want to make sure that my Government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country.
We must take everyone through us on some of the difficult decisions that we have ahead.
Above all it will be a Government that is built on some clear values, values of freedom, values of fairness and values of responsibility. I want us to build an economy that rewards work, I want us to build a society with stronger families and stronger communities and I want a political system that people can trust and look up to once again.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2010, First speech as UK Prime Minister (2010)

Arno Allan Penzias photo

“Change is rarely comfortable”

Arno Allan Penzias (1933) American physicist

Autobiography http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1978/penzias-autobio.html, Arno Penzias, The Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 (provided in 2004)

Azar Nafisi photo

“Khatami is a symptom and not the cause of change in Iran.”

Azar Nafisi (1955) Iranaian academic and writer

"Mutually Assured Misunderstanding" at PBS.org, Interviews for Frontline (April 23 and May 2, 2002) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline//shows/tehran/axis/nafisi.html

Wilkie Collins photo

“I confess I have often fancied myself transformed into some other person, and have felt a certian pleasure in seeing myself in my new chracter. One of our first amusements as children (if we have any imagination at all) is to get out of our own characters, and to try the characters of other personages as a change—to be fairies, to be queens, to be anything, in short, but what we really are.”

The Law and the Lady [Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1875] ( p. 195)
Also in Gothic Returns in Collins, Dickens, Zola, and Hitchcock by Eleanor Salotto [Springer, 2016, ISBN 1-137-11770-2 https://books.google.com/books?id=qPmE-w86r0AC&pg=PA195 ( p. 39 https://books.google.com/books?id=recYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA39)
The Law and the Lady (1875)

David Morrison photo
Daniel Kahneman photo
Lydia Canaan photo

“I was born in a world of borders, barricades, and demarcation lines. And since I could not change the world around me, I created a world inside me, and I held on to it. It was a world with no borders, barricades, or demarcation lines. It was a world of hope.”

Lydia Canaan Lebanese singer-songwriter

From Hostage to Injustice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBYo3oXInGU, a speech delivered at the 26th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, June 17, 2014

George Lucas photo
Robert Jordan photo

“What could not be changed must be endured.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Variant: What could not be changed must be endured.
Source: New Spring (January 2004), Chapter 1: The Hook. p. 5

Bob Barr photo

“The definition of throwing your vote away is to go into that voting booth and vote for one of two parties that will not change the direction this country's going in.”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Concord Monitor, (22 July 2008) Libertarian appeals to decisive voters http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/FRONTPAGE/807230305, Concord Monitor, 22 July 2008.
2000s, 2008

Paul DiMaggio photo
Trevor Noah photo

“Of course Ben Carson advisors can't make him smart, you can't change its brain. That's a job for a neurosurgeon. It's the same when your barber has a #### haircut.”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

18 November 2015
The Daily Show
Source: Visible at 00:50 di Ben Carson's Public Breakup http://www.cc.com/video-clips/2ybqd8/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-ben-carson-blames-the-victims, CC.com, 18 novembre 2015.

Fred Astaire photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Yanni photo

“If my music can change someone's mood for the better even a little bit, that's amazing.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

Haruki Murakami photo
E.M. Forster photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Jonathan Franzen photo

“One of the consolations of dying… Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how you could stand it psychologically.”

Jonathan Franzen (1959) novelist

"Jonathan Franzen Warns Ebooks are Corroding Values," http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values The Guardian (Jan 30, 2012).

Ilana Mercer photo

“The tools threatening President Trump with impeachment have one bag of tricks stuffed with power tools: they audit, indict, arrest, bomb, change regimes. They don't make profitable business deals; they tax them. They don't make peace; they wage war.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Trump Fends Off 'Showboat' Comey And The Federal Zombies," http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/trump_fends_off_showboat_comey_and_the_federal_zombies.html The American Thinker, June 9, 2017.
2010s, 2017

Bill Nye photo
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Paul R. Ehrlich photo
Robert Pinsky photo
Joanna Newsom photo