Quotes about change
page 36

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 30.

David Bowie photo

“Fame, (fame) makes a man take things over
Fame, (fame) lets him loose, hard to swallow
Fame, (fame) puts you there where things are hollow
Fame (fame)Fame, it's not your brain, it's just the flame
That burns your change to keep you insane”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

sane
Fame, written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon
Song lyrics, Young Americans (1975)

“All lasting change is preceded by changed thinking. Any other type of change will only be temporary.”

Tommy Newberry American writer

The 4:8 Principle.
The 4:8 Principle (2007)

Ali Al-Wardi photo
Amory B. Lovins photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Rudolf Virchow photo

“Cellular pathology is not an end if one cannot see any alteration in the cell. Chemistry brings the clarification of living processes nearer than does anatomy. Each anatomical change must have been preceded by a chemical one.”

Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) German doctor, anthropologist, public health activist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician

attributed to Rudolph Virchow Coper, H., Herken, H., 1963. Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. 88,2025– 2036. cited by 1. Gelman BB, Soukup VM, Schuenke KW, Keherly MJ, Holzer C, Richey FJ, et al. Acquired neuronal channelopathies in HIV-associated dementia. J Neuroimmunol. 2004;157(1–2 SPEC. ISS.):111–9.

Frank Buchman photo

“Upon a foundation of changed lives permanent reconstruction is assured.”

Frank Buchman (1878–1961) Evangelical theologist

Remaking the world, The Speeches of Frank N.D. Buchman, Blandford Presss 1947, revised 1958, p. 5
Moral attitude

Anthony Watts photo
Anil Kumble photo

“For years, we thought we are a sporting nation but we had little to show. In the last decade, India's sporting success has changed all that.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

India became a sporting nation in the last decade: Kumble

Russell L. Ackoff photo

“In June of 1964 the research group and academic program moved to Penn bringing with it most of the faculty, students, and research projects. Our activities flourished in the very supportive environment that Penn and Wharton provided. The wide variety of faculty members that we were able to involve in our activities significantly enhanced our capabilities. By the mid-1960s I had become uncomfortable with the direction, or rather, the lack of direction, of professional Operations Research. I had four major complaints.
First, it had become addicted to its mathematical tools and had lost sight of the problems of management. As a result it was looking for problems to which to apply its tools rather than looking for tools that were suitable for solving the changing problems of management. Second, it failed to take into account the fact that problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Reality consists of systems of problems, problems that are strongly interactive, messes. I believed that we had to develop ways of dealing with these systems of problems as wholes. Third, Operations Research had become a discipline and had lost its commitment to interdisciplinarity. Most of it was being carried out by professionals who had been trained in the subject, its mathematical techniques. There was little interaction with the other sciences professions and humanities. Finally, Operations Research was ignoring the developments in systems thinking — the methodology, concepts, and theories being developed by systems thinkers.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xiii
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Simone Weil photo
Nguyen Khanh photo
Eric R. Kandel photo
Laura Anne Gilman photo
Jeremy Rifkin photo
Lauren Bacall photo
Mike Huckabee photo

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other, and how we treat the family.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Morning Joe
Television
MSNBC
2008-01-15, quoted in * David
Edwards
Muriel
Kane
Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'
2008-01-15
Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_Amend_Constitution_to_meet_Gods_0115.html
2011-03-01
Mike Huckabee: Amend the Constitution to God's Standards
2008-01-15
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D08Dq_iNMRk
2011-03-01

Amir Taheri photo
Brooks D. Simpson photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
Tom Robbins photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Stephen Baxter photo
Joe Biden photo
Charles Dickens photo

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Dana Gioia photo

“My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid’s curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!”

George Peele (1556–1596) English translator and poet

Cupid's Curse, Lines 12-13 (date uncertain), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Bill Maher photo

“I think we need to change that old saying, "I don't need a building to fall on me." Because two did and we still don't get it. I think we all stick our head in the sand as a deep human impulse.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism (2002)

George Long photo
Kofi Annan photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Alice Cooper photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Mirkka Rekola photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
W. Brian Arthur photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Frances Kellor photo
Wafa Sultan photo
Arthur Hugh Clough photo

“Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done
Do it, Time is on the wing!”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

Love, Not Duty http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/lovenotduty.html, st. 1 (1841).

Susan Faludi photo
George W. Bush photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Russell Brand photo
Joel Mokyr photo
George Eliot photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstitution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position – leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – like Chomsky – looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"In enemy territory? An interview with Christopher Hitchens." http://www.johannhari.com/2004/09/23/in-enemy-territory-an-interview-with-christopher-hitchens, Interview with Johann Hari (2004-09-23): On the Bosnian War
2000s, 2004

“When the Deep Impact probe hit Comet 9P/Tempel, there was almost no change in brightness. … This outburst by Comet Holmes is extreme!”

Brian G. Marsden (1937–2010) British astronomer

On the unprecedented brightening of Comet Holmes, as quoted in "Mystery Comet Explodes into Brightness" (26 October 2007) at Physorg.com http://www.physorg.com/news112622756.html. Within the space of a few hours between 23-24 October 2007 it brightened from a very dim and obscure object requiring powerful telescopes to see into one easily visible to the naked eye.

Larry Sanger photo

“I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you’re still at it.”

Larry Sanger (1968) American former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects

"An open letter to Jimmy Wales" Citizendium.org (8 April 2009) http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/.

Gerhard Richter photo
Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Ernest Bevin photo

“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

Report of the Proceedings of the Trade Union Congress, 1927
Speech to the TUC General Council, 8 September 1927.

Robert Southwell photo

“Times go by turns and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

Source: Times Go by Turns, Line 5; p. 47.

Ludovico Ariosto photo

“Since to raise up and comfort in distress
Whom Fortune's wheel beats down in changeful run,
Was never blamed; with glory oftener paid.”

Che rilevare un che Fortuna ruote
Talora al fondo, e consolar l'afflitto,
Mai non fu biasmo, ma gloria sovente.
Canto X, stanza 14 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Jack Layton photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Will Cuppy photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Ivar Jacobson photo

“The analysis model will not be a reflection of what the problem domain looks like… The reason is simply to get a more maintainable structure where changes will be local and thus manageable. We thus do not model reality as it is, as object orientation is often said to do, but we model the reality as we want to see it and to highlight what is important in our application.”

Ivar Jacobson (1939) Swedish computer scientist

Source: Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach (1992), p. 185: cited in: " Object Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach Ivar Jacobson, et al. (1992) http://tedfelix.com/software/jacobson1992.html", Book review by Ted Felix on tedfelix.com, 2006.

Bob Dylan photo

“I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

On the influence of Jack Kerouac on him, as quoted Grasping for the Wind : The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century (2001) by John W. Whitehead

Vasco Rossi photo

“You cannot just speak change, you have to LIVE change!”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 83

Ba Jin photo
James Jeans photo
William Morris photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Apolo Anton Ohno photo

“To be able to come out of that mess as I did is special. To be able to improve my relations with my dad is special. I'm happy with the way my life's going, the way I'm growing up as a person. Skating has changed me. I've had a lot of chances, and this is my time to shine.”

Apolo Anton Ohno (1982) American short track speed skating competitor

Prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics
Price, S.L. (2002) "Launch of Apolo" http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/news/2002/02/13/launch_of_apolo/ Sports Illustrated. (accessed May 24, 2007)

Arthur Scargill photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Tjalling Koopmans photo

“Decisions and plans made by others… [can be judged to be] quantitatively at least as important as the primary uncertainty arising from random acts of nature and unpredictable changes in consumers' preferences.”

Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985) Dutch American economist

Source: Three Essays (1957), p. 163; as cited in: Richard Langlois (1989) Economics as a Process. p. 181

Eugene V. Debs photo

“When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Speech in Cleveland, Ohio.(Sept. 11, 1918) Eugene V. Debs Speaks, ed. Jean Y. Tussey (1970)

Waylon Jennings photo

“It's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar.
Where do we take it from here?
Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars;
We've been the same way for years.
We need to change.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way, from Dreaming My Dreams (1975).
Song lyrics

Brian Clevinger photo
Herbert A. Simon photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
Preity Zinta photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“They met with cold words, and yet colder looks:
Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought
The other only changed, himself the same.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Change from The London Literary Gazette (23rd August 1823)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Murray Leinster photo
Elizabeth Taylor photo
Robert Lynn Asprin photo
Friedrich Engels photo

“The Mercantile System still had a certain artless Catholic candour and did not in the least conceal the immoral nature of trade. … But when the economic Luther, Adam Smith, criticised past economics things had changed considerably. … Protestant hypocrisy took the place of Catholic candour.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Das Merkantilsystem hatte noch eine gewisse unbefangene, katholische Geradheit und verdeckte das unsittliche Wesen des Handels nicht im mindesten. ... Als aber der ökonomische Luther, Adam Smith, die bisherige Ökonomie kritisierte, hatten sich die Sachen sehr geändert. ... An die Stelle der katholischen Geradheit trat protestantische Gleisnerei.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)