Quotes about change
page 37

Utah Phillips photo

“I'm here to change the world, and if I am not, I am probably wasting my time.”

Utah Phillips (1935–2008) American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet

Kupfer, David, "Utah Phillips" http://progressive.org/mag/interview/utahphillips, The Progressive. September 2003. Web. August 6, 2013.

William Hazlitt photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
Paul Klee photo
William Lane Craig photo

“What good does it do to pray about anything if the outcome is not affected? I would say when God chooses which world to actualize, he takes into account the prayers that would be offered in that world. We shouldn't think prayer is about changing the mind of God. He's omniscient; he already knows the future, but prayer makes a difference in that it can affect what world God has chosen to create.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

2014-01-31
William Lane Craig: God Hears Your Super Bowl Prayers
Kate Shellnutt
Christianity Today
0009-5753
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-web-only/god-watches-big-game-william-lane-craig.html
Posed question: "What’s the value in praying for God's will to be done for the outcome of a game if God's will will be done whether we pray or not?"

Cesare Pavese photo
Tom Clancy photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Philippe Kahn photo

“Invention is the root of innovation. Innovation is the major force for change in the future.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Comments made in the Q and A part of a speech at the Silicon Valley computer museum in 2005 regarding the energy spent in Silicon Valley at managing perception as opposed to creating new technology. In response to a question about the power of venture capital and consumer marketing and how it is determining the future of technology.

Peter F. Drucker photo

“There is every indication that the period ahead will be an innovative one, one of rapid change in technology, society, economy, and institutions.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 803 (last page)

Propertius photo

“Never change when love has found its home.”
Neque assueto mutet amore torum.

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

I, i, 36.
Elegies

Joel Mokyr photo
Roman Dmowski photo

“The only salvation for us is to stop being an incoherent, loose mob and to change into a strongly organized, disciplined army.”

Roman Dmowski (1864–1939) Polish politician

"Walka o prawo i organizacja narodowa", Przegląd Wszechpolski, vol. 9 (June 1903).

George W. Bush photo
Aron Ra photo
Aron Ra photo
Aron Ra photo
Manmohan Singh photo

“Change is the parent of progress.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 89

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Hans Reichenbach photo

“The surfaces of three-dimensional space are distinguished from each other not only by their curvature but also by certain more general properties. A spherical surface, for instance, differs from a plane not only by its roundness but also by its finiteness. Finiteness is a holistic property. The sphere as a whole has a character different from that of a plane. A spherical surface made from rubber, such as a balloon, can be twisted so that its geometry changes…. but it cannot be distorted in such a way as that it will cover a plane. All surfaces obtained by distortion of the rubber sphere possess the same holistic properties; they are closed and finite. The plane as a whole has the property of being open; its straight lines are not closed. This feature is mathematically expressed as follows. Every surface can be mapped upon another one by the coordination of each point of one surface to a point of the other surface, as illustrated by the projection of a shadow picture by light rays. For surfaces with the same holistic properties it is possible to carry through this transformation uniquely and continuously in all points. Uniquely means: one and only one point of one surface corresponds to a given point of the other surface, and vice versa. Continuously means: neighborhood relations in infinitesimal domains are preserved; no tearing of the surface or shifting of relative positions of points occur at any place. For surfaces with different holistic properties, such a transformation can be carried through locally, but there is no single transformation for the whole surface.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Eugen Drewermann photo
Gustavo Gutiérrez photo
Yanis Varoufakis photo
Arthur Hugh Clough photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Charles Krauthammer photo
Linus Torvalds photo
Chad Johnson photo
Max Stirner photo
Mohan Bhagwat photo

“Hindus do not believe in conversion. If anyone fears that Hindus are resorting to conversion, let there be a legislation in Parliament to stop this practice. Hindus do not want to change anybody. If you do not want anybody to convert, then do not convert Hindus too.”

Mohan Bhagwat (1950) Indian activist

On the Ghar Wapsi issue, " RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat justifies ‘ghar wapsi’, says will bring back our brothers who have lost their way http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/bhagwat-dares-oppn-says-if-dont-like-conversion-bring-law-against-it/", The Indian Express (21 December 2014)
2011-2014

Giordano Bruno photo
Studs Terkel photo
Russell Crowe photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016)
2010s, 2016, August

Rupert Murdoch photo

“Can we change the world? No, but hell, we can all try.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

Source: News Corp : Making of a global media business http://www.icmr.icfai.org/casestudies/catalogue/Business%20Strategy3/BSTA076.htm

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo
Barbara Boxer photo
John Cleveland photo

“Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom;
Not made him wander, but continued him home.”

John Cleveland (1613–1658) English poet

The Rebel Scot (1647).

Gordon Brown photo

“On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today, my school motto: "I will try my outmost". This is my promise to all of the people of Britain and now let the work of change begin.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Statement at Downing Street http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page12155.asp, 27 June 2007.
Statement outside 10 Downing Street immediately after becoming Prime Minister. The motto referred to is an English translation of the Latin Usque conabor. Brown said "outmost", as spelled on the BBC News transcript http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6246114.stm, but other sources usually give "utmost".
Prime Minister

Henry Ford photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
Jorge Majfud photo

“Lysenkoism is held up by bourgeois commentators as the supreme demonstration that conscious ideology cannot inform scientific practice and that "ideology has no place in science." On the other hand, some writers are even now maintaining a Lysenkoist position because they believe that the principles of dialectical materialism contradict the claims of genetics. Both of these claims stem from a vulgarisation of Marxist philosophy through deliberate hostility, in the first case, or ignorance, in the second. Nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao contradicts the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of natural phenomena in the objective world, because what they wrote about nature was at a high level of abstraction. The error of the Lysenkoist claim arises from attempting to apply a dialectical analysis of physical problems from the wrong end. Dialectical materialism is not, and has never been, a programmatic method for solving particular physical problems. Rather, dialectical analysis provides an overview and a set of warning signs against particular forms of dogmatism and narrowness of thought. It tells us, "Remember that history may leave an important trace. Remember that being and becoming are dual aspects of nature. Remember that conditions change and that the conditions necessary to the initiation of some process may be destroyed by the process itself. Remember to pay attention to real objects in space and time and not lose them utterly in idealized abstractions. Remember that qualitative effects of context and interaction may be lost when phenomena are isolated."”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

And above all else, "Remember that all the other caveats are only reminders and warning signs whose application to different circumstances of the real world is contingent."
"The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins, in Hilary and Steven Rose (eds.), The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan, 1976, p. 58.

Pete Doherty photo

“I still do. It's changed a lot. It started off as something ancient and forgotten; and became something modern and real. I just couldn't swim. The tunnels get narrower and narrower.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

NME (New Musical Express), December 15, 2006, when asked if he still believes in Arcadia.
Arcadia

Kevin Warwick photo

“I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the power to change.”

Kevin Warwick (1954) British robotics and cybernetics researcher

in Kevin Warwick "Cyborg 1.0", Wired, pp.145-151, February 2000.

Rensis Likert photo
Stafford Cripps photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
Josefa Iloilo photo

“When we ask ourselves if we are walking with Christ, I believe we need to ask oursleves this question: Has Christ changed the way I view the world lately?”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Michael Elmore-Meegan photo

“Today we can change the future for someone, we have only to act.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

Surprised by Joy

Ann Coulter photo

“There's nothing Trump can do that won't be forgiven, except change his immigration policies.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Arthur Jones (inventor) photo
Michael Chabon photo
KT Tunstall photo
Michael Walzer photo
Edward Witten photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“They [great works of literature] are invalidated not because of their literary obsolescence. Some of these images pertain to contemporary literature and survive in its most advanced creations. What has been invalidated is their subversive force, their destructive content—their truth. In this transformation, they find their home in everyday living. The alien and alienating oeuvres of intellectual culture become familiar goods and services. Is their massive reproduction and consumption only a change in quantity, namely, growing appreciation and understanding, democratization of culture? The truth of literature and art has always been granted (if it was granted at all) as one of a “higher” order, which should not and indeed did not disturb the order of business. What has changed in the contemporary period is the difference between the two orders and their truths. The absorbent power of society depletes the artistic dimension by assimilating its antagonistic contents. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference. Prior to the advent of this cultural reconciliation, literature and art were essentially alienation, sustaining and protecting the contradiction—the unhappy consciousness of the divided world, the defeated possibilities, the hopes unfulfilled, and the promises betrayed. They were a rational, cognitive force, revealing a dimension of man and nature which was repressed and repelled in reality.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 60-61

“A while ago there was an article in the New York Times about some women in Tennessee who wanted the middle grade text books removed from the school curriculum, not because they were inadequate educationally, but because these women were afraid that they might stimulate the childrens' imaginations.
What!?!
It was a good while later that I realized that the word, imagination, is always a bad word in the King James translation of the Bible. I checked it out in my concordance, and it is always bad.
Put them down in the imagination of their hearts. Their imagination is only to do evil.
Language changes. What meant one thing three hundred years ago means something quite different now. So the people who are afraid of the word imagination are thinking about it as it was defined three centuries ago, and not as it is understood today, a wonderful word denoting creativity and wideness of vision.
Another example of our changing language is the word, prevent. Take it apart into its Latin origin, and it is prevenire. Go before. So in the language of the King James translation if we read, "May God prevent us," we should understand the meaning to be, "God go before us," or "God lead us."
And the verb, to let, used to mean, stop. Do not let me, meant do not stop me. And now it is completely reversed into a positive, permissive word.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)

Jodie Marsh photo

“Once you’ve been naked in a room full of 300 people, nothing scares you. I’m not saying everyone should become a stripper but forcing yourself to do something terrifying can change your life. You realise you can do anything.”

Jodie Marsh (1978) English glamour model and television personality

Interview in The Metro http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/interviews/39209-60-seconds-jodie-marsh#ixzz1o9GF3Az0, undated.

“How might our perception of God be changed if we turned off the radio station for a few minutes and walked in a thunderstorm?”

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

John Dewey photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Arshile Gorky photo
Francisco Varela photo
Joseph Beuys photo
Harold Wilson photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
William H. McNeill photo
Peter M. Senge photo
William Hazlitt photo
Paul A. Samuelson photo

“[T]he effects of general change [in literature] are most tellingly recorded not in alteration of the best products, but in the transformation of the most ordinary workaday books; for when potboilers adopt the new style, then the revolution is complete.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Good Sports & Bad", p. 335; originally published in The New York Review of Books (1995-03-02)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Philip Schaff photo

“Editions and Revisions. The printed Bible text of Luther had the same fate as the written text of the old Itala and Jerome's Vulgate. It passed through innumerable improvements and mis-improvements. The orthography and inflections were modernized, obsolete words removed, the versicular division introduced (first in a Heidelberg reprint, 1568), the spurious clause of the three witnesses inserted in 1 John 5:7 (first by a Frankfurt publisher, 1574), the third and fourth books of Ezra and the third book of the Maccabees added to the Apocrypha, and various other changes effected, necessary and unnecessary, good and bad. Elector August of Saxony tried to control the text in the interest of strict Lutheran orthodoxy, and ordered the preparation of a standard edition (1581). But it was disregarded outside of Saxony.
Gradually no less than eleven or twelve recensions came into use, some based on the edition of 1545, others on that of 1546. The most careful recension was that of the Canstein Bible Institute, founded by a pious nobleman, Carl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667-1719) in connection with Francke's Orphan House at Halle. It acquired the largest circulation and became the textus receptus of the German Bible.
With the immense progress of biblical learning in the present century, the desire for a timely revision of Luther's version was more and more felt. Revised versions with many improvements were prepared by Joh.- Friedrich von Meyer, a Frankfurt patrician (1772-1849), and Dr. Rudolf Stier (1800-1862), but did not obtain public authority.
At last a conservative official revision of the Luther Bible was inaugurated by the combined German church governments in 1863, with a view and fair prospect of superseding all former editions in public use.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”

Charlton Ogburn (1911–1998) American journalist and author

From "Merrill's Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure" http://www.harpers.org/archive/1957/01/0007289 in the January 1957 issue of Harper's Magazine
Usually misattributed to Petronius
See Brown, David S. "Petronius or Ogburn?", <i>Public Administration Review</i>, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1978), p. 296 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-3352(197805%2F06)38%3A3%3C296%3APOO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z
<p>alternate version:</p><p>As a result, I suppose, of high-level changes of mind about how we were to be used, we went though several reorganizations. Perhaps because Americans as a nation have a gift for organizing, we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization, and a wonderful method it is for creating the illusion of progress at the mere cost of confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.</p>
The Maurauders (1959)
chapter 2, page 60

“No man's more fortunate than he who's poor,
Since for the worse his fortune cannot change.”

Diphilus Athenian poet of New Comedy

Fragment 23
Fabulae Incertae

Clay Shirky photo
John Tyndall photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Charles I of England photo
Charles Sumner photo

“With me, sir, there is no alternative. Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrongs and woes of slavery; profoundly believing that, according to the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments of the fathers, it can find no place under our National Government — that it is in every respect sectional, and in no respect national — that it is always and everywhere the creature and dependent of the States, and never anywhere the creature or dependent of the Nation, and that the Nation can never, by legislative or other act, impart to it any support, under the Constitution of the United States; with these convictions, I could not allow this session to reach its close, without making or seizing an- opportunity to declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice, and cruelty, of the late enactment by Congress for the recovery of fugitive slaves. Full well I know, sir, the difficulties of this discussion, arising from prejudices of opinion and from adverse conclusions, strong and sincere as my own. Full well I know that I am in a small minority, with few here to whom I may look for sympathy or support. Full well I know that I must utter things unwelcome to many in this body, which I cannot do without pain. Full well I know that the institution of slavery in our country, which I now proceed to consider, is as sensitive as it is powerful — possessing a power to shake the whole land with a sensitiveness that shrinks and trembles at the touch. But, while these things may properly prompt me to caution and reserve, they cannot change my duty, or my determination to perform it. For this I willingly forget myself, and all personal consequences. The favor and good-will of my fellow-citizens, of my brethren of the Senate, sir, — grateful to me as it justly is — I am ready, if required, to sacrifice. All that I am or may be, I freely offer to this cause.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

"Freedom National, Slavery Sectional," speech in the Senate (July 27, 1852).

“[The younger employees] do not appreciate fully the great change that is taking place in their lives, nor do they realize the added responsibility that "growing-up" brings with it.”

Edward Cadbury (1873–1948) British businessman

Source: Experiments in industrial organization (1912), p. 2; As cited in: Felix Behling et al. (2015; 194)

Angelique Rockas photo
Margaret Chase Smith photo
Newt Gingrich photo

“I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2011-05-15 interview on * Meet the Press
2011-05-15
NBC, quoted in * Gingrich Calls GOP Budget 'Right Wing Social Engineering'
PBS
2011-05-16
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/05/gingrich-keeps-ryan-budget-at-arms-length.html
2011-05-28
2010s

Philip Schaff photo

“In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer), Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."
At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in 1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.
In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen editions, and in over fifty reprints.
Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.
He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious.
He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death.
The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of them are real improvements, e. g., Die Liebe höret nimmer auf, for, Die Liebe wird nicht müde (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be unfounded.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

Michael Swanwick photo