Quotes about change (7955 quotes, page 67)

“We thought that the proletariat would eventually run the world. But it is the Americans who have assumed that position… The American people have changed.”

Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937) Former dictator of Ethiopia

As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010) http://www.jimmatimes.com/article/Latest_News/Latest_News/Mengistu_blames_Meles_for_helping_Eritrea_at_UN_to_split_Ethiopia/33629

People , World

“"Another situation generally exposed to ressentiment danger is the older generation's relation with the younger. The process of aging can only be fruitful and satisfactory if the important transitions are accompanied by free resignation, by the renunciation of the values proper to the preceding stage of life. Those spiritual and intellectual values which remain untouched by the process of aging, together with the values of the next stage of life, must compensate for what has been lost. Only if this happens can we cheerfully relive the values of our past in memory, without envy for the young to whom they are still accessible. If we cannot compensate, we avoid and flee the “tormenting” recollection of youth, thus blocking our possibilities of understanding younger people. At the same time we tend to negate the specific values of earlier stages. No wonder that youth always has a hard fight to sustain against the ressentiment of the older generation. Yet this source of ressentiment is also subject to an important historical variation. In the earliest stages of civilization, old age as such is so highly honored and respected for its experience that ressentiment has hardly any chance to develop. But education spreads through printing and other modern media and increasingly replaces the advantage of experience. Younger people displace the old from their positions and professions and push them into the defensive. As the pace of “progress” increases in all fields, and as the changes of fashion tend to affect even the higher domains (such as art and science), the old can no longer keep up with their juniors. “Novelty‟ becomes an ever greater value. This is doubly true when the generation as such is seized by an intense lust for life, and when the generations compete with each other instead of cooperating for the creation of works which outlast them. “Every cathedral,” Werner Sombart writes, “every monastery, every town hall, every castle of the Middle Ages bears testimony to the transcendence of the individual's span of life: its completion spans generations which thought that they lived for ever. Only when the individual cut himself loose from the community which outlasted him, did the duration of his personal life become his standard of happiness.” Therefore buildings are constructed ever more hastily—Sombart cites a number of examples. A corresponding phenomenon is the ever more rapid alternation of political regimes which goes hand in hand with the progression of the democratic movement. But every change of government, every parliamentary change of party domination leaves a remnant of absolute opposition against the values of the new ruling group. This opposition is spent in ressentiment the more the losing group feels unable to return to power. The “retired official” with his followers is a typical ressentiment figure. Even a man like Bismarck did not entirely escape from this danger."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life , People , Youth , Age

“He had come there dissatisfied with his work, even though his multi-kinetic work was admired and winning him professional recognition. However, at that moment, other ideas were gestating and he wanted to add what he called a "fifth dimension" to his art - that of artificial intelligence. […] : [At the colony, ] he was able to turn his thoughts inward, hoping to discover the new methods and direction that would more deeply satisfy his creative needs. It was at this point, while watching the motions and patterns of sun on leaves in the New Hampshire woods one morning, that Tsai finally achieved the revelatory breakthrough that changed his art and liberated his creative energies. As he put it, he wanted to create "natural movements in dynamic equilibrium, with intelligence," and he found his solution in an unlikely combination of natural phenomenon, the precedent of Gabo's singular (and unrepeated) kinetic sculpture, and the new resource of contemporary analog and digital technology. Speaking of this moment of revelation, Tsai said that he had quite deliberately turned himself into "a sort of plant": facing his chair into the sunshine in the morning, he turned his body in stages throughout the day, mulling over ways of make an "art that presented the observer with natural movements in dynamic equilibrium, and art that could convey the awe I felt while watching sunbeams shimmer through forest leaves." But a work that would "shimmer" simply did not do enough either for the artist or viewer, Tsai concluded. It must also respond in some way to the observer; it would have to work on a new feedback principle and actually engage the observer directly. In short, a cybernetic sculpture was required. To create such radically participatory works, he understood, would require that he draw on his engineering skills rather than suppress them, as he had been trying to do in his period of oil painting.”

Sam Hunter (1923–2014) American art historian

Source: The Cybernetic Sculpture of Tsai Wen-Ying, 1989, p. 67

Hope , Art , Way , Intelligence

“The Scriptures … tell us what man wanted to do when he created the city, what he was hoping to conquer, what he thought to establish. And this narrative of the origin of the city is essential, for we see there in its purest state, and expressed simply, the feelings of the builders. Such feelings are no longer evident in our modern day when the prodigious complexity of the world hides the simple plans of the never-changing human heart.”

Jacques Ellul book The Meaning of the City

Source: The Meaning of the City (1951), p. 7

World , Hope , Feeling , Heart

“Everyone should prepare NOW for this change, for I promise you that it will come, and only those who are ready will survive.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

SSSBFM, (1991), p .223

“During the war the congregation was largely broken up […] and it was never really reconstituted after the war. […] Before the war my parents (I, too) had known almost every shop and shopkeeper in Cricklewood […] and I would see them all in their places in shul. But all this was shattered with the impact of the war, and then with the rapid postwar social changes in our corner of London. I myself, traumatized at Braefield, had lost touch with, lost interest in, the religion of my childhood. I regret that I was to lose it as early and as abruptly as I did, and this feeling of sadness or nostalgia was strangely admixed with a raging atheism, a sort of fury with God for not existing, not taking care, not preventing the war, but allowing it, and all its horrors, to occur.”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), pp. 178–179

God , War , Sadness , Religion

“Here’s a pot with a cot in a park
In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,
Where the lovers eloped in the dark,
Lived, died and were changed into two
Bright birds that eternally flew
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;
’T is a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.”

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist and literary critic

Ballades in Blue China (1880)

Lovers , Bird

“The real us present, and it is transfigured… It is everywhere a reality at once immutable and changing. Matter is present, submitted to a luminous phantasmagoria. What Monet paints is the space that exists between himself and things.”

Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926) French writer

1895 in: Steven Z. Levine, ‎Claude Monet (1994), Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The Modernist Myth of the Self. p. 93

Reality , Painting

“Over the sea and far away
She's waiting like an iceberg
Waiting to change…”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Other Side of the World".
Eye to the Telescope (2004)

Waiting , Sea

“The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience. 'The will,' says Francis Thompson, 'is the lynch-pin of the faculties.' We stand or fall by its strength or its infirmity. Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue. Parental legislation for the benefit of the weak leaves them as weak as ever… They may go to heaven in leading-strings, but they cannot conquer Apollyon on the way.”

Agnes Repplier (1855–1950) American essayist

in "Consolations of the Conservative" from Points of Friction (1920)

Men , Way , Parent , Strong

“Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well-being that rum does?… The only time it isn't good for you is when you write or when you fight. You have to do that cold. But it always helps my shooting. Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Postscript to letter to critic, poet and translator Ivan Kashkin (19 August 1935); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Life , Pleasure , Idea , Drink

“So black people, you are subjects of white people. Even under ANC, even under the so-called democracy, you are subject, you are servant of white people. No white man will be served by me. I do not serve white masters. … I am here to disturb the white man's peace. … The white man has been too comfortable for too long. We are here unashamedly to disturb the white man's peace, because we have never known peace. We don't know what peace looks like. … They have been swimming in a pool of privilege. They have been enjoying themselves because they always owned our land. We, the rightful owners, our peace was disturbed by white man's arrival here. They committed a black genocide. They killed our people during land dispossession. … They found peaceful Africans here. They killed them. They slaughtered them like animals. We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now. What we are calling for is for peaceful occupation of the land. And we don't owe anyone apology about that. … Revolution is about making those who are comfortable uncomfortable. … Revolution is about disturbing the peace of those who are swimming in a peaceful environment through exploitation of the working class. … Our strategic objective is the defeat of white monopoly capital. And that defeat […] means the ownership of property must change and be transferred into the hands of the people. Their mines must be nationalized, the banks must be nationalized, the land must be expropriated without compensation. … But white minority be warned, we will take our land no matter what.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

To EFF supporters after appearing in the Newcastle Magistrates court on 7 November 2016, for allegedly contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act, “We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now.” Malema http://www.thesouthafrican.com/we-are-not-calling-for-the-slaughtering-of-white-people-at-least-for-now-malema/, Ezra Claymore, The South African, 8 November 2016, and a video https://twitter.com/tshidi_lee/status/795572416290443264/video/1 by Matshidiso Madia. See also: Malema addresses supporters after appearing in court, 7 November 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBi3z-1yAs, SABC News, YouTube

People , Peace , Democracy , Animals

“It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme of Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/294/mode/1up pp. 294-295

Thinking , People

“Television tells us everyday that we live in a world we don't understand. And yet in the main it does little to explain that world. It tells us of new products that make the products we have either old-fashioned or obsolete. Above all, if today we are aware of how fast the world around us is changing, it's because television acts as a relentless reminder of that fact.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 9 - Countdown

World , Fashion , Understanding

“But I can tell — let truth be told —
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is nought to see,
So delicate his motions be.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

So Sweet Love Seemed, st. 2 (1893).
Shorter Poems (1879-1893)

Love , Truth

“In the spirit of faith let us begin each day, and we shall be sure to "redeem the time" which it brings to us, by changing it into something definite and eternal. There is a deep meaning in this phrase of the apostle, to redeem time. We redeem time, and do not merely use it. We transform it into eternity by living it aright.”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 583.

Faith , Time

“In our work in fast- changing markets, we often see that time pacing helps managers avert the danger of changing too infrequently. By setting a regular pace for change, managers avoid becoming locked into old patterns and habits.”

Shona Brown (1960) businessperson

Source: Competing on the Edge, 1998, p. 67

Time , Help

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France (23 January 1967), quoted in The New York Times (24 January 1967), p. 12.
Prime Minister

“I don’t feel I have to look or act a certain way. But this might change, as I get older. I’m not worrying about it right now. I’m enjoying myself.”

Louisa Lytton (1989) actress

"Louisa Lytton exclusive interview : Heart of glass" at Teens first for health at Great Ormond Street Hospital http://www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk/teens/life/features/celebrity_health/louisa_lytton.html

Way , Feeling

“He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him.”

Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere

Source: Neverwhere (1996), Chapter 16

World

“Cold Mountain Son
Forever not change
I live alone
Beyond life death”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Life , Death , Mountain

“But a top down approach can take you only so far – even in a hierarchical organisation like an Army. I can impress my senior leaders with the need to change and give them clear guidance as to how to proceed but it is vital to get buy in at all levels of the organisation.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

“To achieve victory at the cost of eroding civil liberties would not really be a victory. We cannot change the core identity of our Nation and claim success. And our identity has never been in doubt — we are a free people, dedicated to liberty for the popular and the unpopular, committed to the ideal that the People govern themselves, and determined to have a government that cannot extinguish or suppress the rights that make us Americans.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

People , Success , Victory

“Until you change the sub conscience mind, you cannot say that you have learned something. If something is worth learning, you should stick with it until you have changed your subconscious mind.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

52
Ki Sayings (2003)

Learning

“Of the two contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary. The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect that has gained the dominant position. But this situation is not static; the principal and the non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform themselves into each other and the nature of the thing changes accordingly.”

Mao Zedong book On Contradiction

On Contradiction (1937)

Nature

“To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed… It's had effects around the margins, of course, but they have mostly been minor. When I wrote it, I really thought the book would change the world. I know it sounds a little grand now, but at the time the sixties still existed for us. It looked as if real changes were possible, and I let myself believe that this would be one of them. All you have to do is walk around the corner to McDonald's to see how successful I have been.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Quoted by Michael Specter on the impact of the book Animal Liberation, " The Dangerous Philosopher http://www.michaelspecter.com/1999/09/the-dangerous-philosopher/", The New Yorker, 6 September 1999.

Books , World , Disappointment , Time

“I believe that the civilization India evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty: it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct.””

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Sect. 13
Variant translations: I believe that the civilisation into which India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestry. Rome went; Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become westernised; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation.
Greece, Egypt, Rome — all have been erased from this world, yet we continue to exist. There is something in us, that our character never ceases from the face of this world, defying global hostility for centuries.
1900s, Hind Swaraj (1908)

Men , Fate , People , World

“As technology grows in power, its ability either to disrupt or to heal increases. We can destroy the planet more easily than we can heal the harm we have done so far. To heal, we have to move to new technologies, new social patterns, new types of consumer products, new ways of generating and spending wealth. Such changes will inevitably occur, whether they are brought by healing forethought or mindless destruction. The future will not be a repetition of the past.”

James Martin (author) (1933–2013) British information technology consultant and writer

James Martin (1978) The wired society. p. 3

Way , Past , Future , Wealth

“Reading changed dreams into life and life into dreams.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

Nobel Lecture (2010)

Life , Dreams , Reading

“Another reason is because industry is the most important field of human activity, and management is the fundamental element in industry. It is now generally recognized that not bankers, not stockholders, but management is the pivot of business success. It is good management that draws credit, that draws workers, that draws customers. Moreover, whatever changes should come, whether industry is owned by individual capitalists, or by the State, or by the workers, it will always have to be managed. Management is a permanent function of business.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xx

Business , Success , Drawing

“Islam uses the notion of taqiyya, where Muslims, consciously or unconsciously, hide their true opinion as they are not in the majority. If I ask a Muslim in the street what he thinks about homosexuality, he will either remain silent or give a politically correct answer. As the number of Muslims increases, even when they are not violent, the ideology of Islam will become more prominent and society will change.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

"Geert Wilders: an interview with the Netherlands' controversial politician." http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Geert+Wilders%3A+an+interview+with+the+Netherlands'+controversial...-a0205111713 Contemporary Review (22 March 2009)
2000s

Thinking

“It would be wonderful if we could just tuck in a few loose ends and change a handful of details of present systems to have them work properly. Unfortunately, we have learned that the GUI concept has fundamental flaws that cannot be corrected by small changes. These flaws have to do with incompatibilities between the designs of both GUIs and command-line interfaces and the way our brains are wired. As we cannot change the way our minds work, we must change the interface design.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

Sourceforge.net article "THE Is Not An Editor... So What Is It?" (2003)

Way , Guy , Learning

“In the future I will focus on improving the economy, making big changes to win back the support from the public.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

DPP Campaign speech, December 7, 2002
Pet Phrases, 2002

Support , Future

“It is hoped that systematic study of the light changes of all the variables, nearly two thousand in number, in the two Magellanic Clouds may soon be undertaken at this Observatory.”

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921) astronomer

Periods of 25 Variable Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1912HarCi.173....1L (1912)

Hope , Study , Light

“I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

"The Discovery of the Future," Guest of Honor Speech, 3rd World Science Fiction Convention, Denver, Colorado (4 July 1941)

World , Idea , Thinking , Science

“You see? The times have changed
But why do I still hear people say
"Tears are woman's weapons"?
We don't cry easily
We are not always flirty
We are not dolls
Who are only dressed to the nines.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

My Name's Women
Lyrics, My Story

People , Tear , Time , Cry

“In the years when he'd worked full-time, he'd never complained about frozen or takeout or preprepared dinners. To Caroline it probably seemed that he was changing the rules on her. But to Gary it seemed that the nature of family life itself was changing - that togetherness and filiality and fraternity weren't valued the way they were when he was young.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Life , Family , Way , Nature

“It is…in my humble opinion, not a desirable thing for us to be dependent for our nourishment on foreign supplies, and I think it would be wise even to sacrifice something of commercial prosperity to the national safety and independence. This…is my strong feeling, and I have great doubt whether our commerce has not been increased by our agricultural prosperity. I entirely agree…that any change in the present system would be an evil.”

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848) British Whig statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1839/mar/14/corn-laws in the House of Lords (14 March 1839) in favour of the Corn Laws.

Feeling , Thinking , Strong , Evil

“If none of us ever read a book that was "dangerous," had a friend who was "different," or joined an organization that advocated "change," we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Speech to his staff (1954)

People , Books , Reading

“I want to discuss why a company exists in the first place. In other words, why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.... Purpose (which should last at least 100 years) should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies (which should change many times in 100 years). Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose; it’s like a guiding star on the horizon—forever pursued but never reached. Yet although purpose itself does not change, it does inspire change. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress.”

David Packard (1912–1996) American electrical engineer, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, businessman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense,…

David Packard (1960) cited in: Bruce Jones. "The Difference Between Purpose and Mission." in Harvard Business Review, Feb. 02, 2016.

Money , People , Star , Business

“The psyche is awareized energy, in a state of constant creativity; a psychic pattern of multidimensionally expressed; each point within it changing in relationship to all other points, and thus altering the entire pattern or model. Each self is immersed in the psyche, yet immersed in its own individuality simultaneously, experiencing reality in time and out of it at once.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 166

Reality , Time

“Geraldine Doogue: I'm intrigued by Anita saying she had to learn about systems. You had to learn about the sociology of systems and structural change, and that was obviously quite a journey for you.Anita Sarkeesian: Yeah, absolutely. I sort of joke about how it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me, and also the most frustrating for everyone around me. Cause, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time. So there's a good year of my life where I was the most obnoxious person to be around. And then you settle into it, you start to understand, like, oh people have been living within these systems, and it was just sort of a liberating moment for me. You learn how to pick and choose your battles and that sort of thing.”

Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger

"How to Be a Feminist" panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m12s (March 8, 2015), All About Women Festival 2015, Sydney, Australia, @32:12

Life , People , Understanding , Learning

“Having such a large family can be challenging. I won't deny that. But they're just great kids so you just deal with everything. There's very few things in my life that I regret. If I could change anything, maybe I wish I had learnt and done certain things earlier. I would have liked to have continued in school longer. I would have been interested in living in Africa and perhaps trained as a pediatrician.”

Mia Farrow (1945) American actress, singer, humanitarian and former fashion model

Reflections on her life, quoted in The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/mia-farrow-my-faith-helps-me-through-hard-times-480665.html, 2006

Life , School , Family , Training

“Putting a low price on valuable environmental resources is a phenomenon that pervades modern society. Agricultural water is not scarce in California; it is underpriced. Flights are stacked up on runways because takeoffs and landings are underpriced. People wait for hours in traffic jams because road use is unpriced. People die premature deaths from small sulfur particles in the air because air pollution is underpriced. And the most perilous of all environmental problems, climate change, is taking place because virtually every country puts a price of zero on carbon dioxide emissions.”

William D. Nordhaus (1941) American economist

"The Pope & the Market," The New York Review of Books, October 8, 2015

Death , People , Problem , Water

“We cannot change the world by a new plan, project, or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, lay aside their occupations and pre-occupations and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their center.”

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) Dutch priest and writer

Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (1975), p. 74

People , World , Idea

“I remember, when I was young,
How easily my mood changed from sad to gay.
… But now that age comes,
A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden" (A.D. 812)
Arthur Waley's translations

Age , Sadness , Mood , Joy

“Fellow citizens, we have been called to leadership in a period of consequence. We have entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite. We see great changes in science and commerce that will influence all our lives. And sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore. Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2006, State of the Union (January 2006)

History , Science

“Real national unity sprang from the things which we had in common; the greater that common interest, the stronger the nation in peace as well as in war. It is because in this country we all enjoyed freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the right to choose and change our Governments that we were united. The continent of Europe had fallen before Hitler because of its disunity. By playing on the rivalries and jealousies of the nations he had divided them and devoured them in detail. There was not enough realization of the common interest of all in our civilization to overcome sectional ambitions and fears. Had Europe been united in spirit the Nazi monster would have been strangled at birth.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chesterfield (13 June 1941), quoted in The Times (14 June 1941), p. 2.
1940s

War , Fear , Jealousy , Peace

“The U. S. policy on Iraq, not just from Bill Clinton to Bush to Obama and beyond, has been consistent but that it's been consistent for six decades through eleven presidents. That included covert CIA operations, regime change, support for Saddam Hussein and a merciless policy of targeting the Iraqi civilian population.”

Jeremy Scahill (1974) American journalist

A Brief History of U.S. Intervention in Iraq Over the Past Half Century https://theintercept.com/2018/04/09/video-a-brief-history-of-u-s-intervention-in-iraq-over-the-past-half-century/ (April 9 2018), The Intercept.

Support

“In 7th grade, I saw the Allman Brothers play at the Beacon Theatre. I also saw the Dave Mathews Band perform at Giant’s Stadium. Those concerts changed my life. I was inspired so much. In my heart, I knew that was the only thing I wanted to do with my life.”

Ross Mintzer (1987) American musician and performer

Interview with Arts Brooksfield(16 October 2014) https://www.facebook.com/artsBrookfield/photos/a.100993377692.102500.97825917692/10152291198457693/
2014

Life , Heart

“As I have heard Bush say, only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness, in part because the epochal upheavals of war provide the opportunity for transformative change of the kind Bush hoped to achieve. In Iraq, Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness.”

Scott McClellan book What Happened

Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, on Bush's need to be a wartime president to improve the chance of a "great" legacy, What Happened, pp. 131

War , Hope , Parting

“I present, for what it is worth, and may prove to be worth, the following bill of axioms or aphorisms on public administration, as fitting this important occasion.
# The continuous and fairly efficient discharge of certain functions by government, central and local, is a necessary condition for the existence of any great society.
# As a society becomes more complicated, as its division of labor ramifies more widely, as its commerce extends, as technology takes the place of handicrafts and local self-sufficiency, the functions of government increase in number and in their vital relationships to the fortunes of society and individuals.
# Any government in such a complicated society, consequently any such society itself, is strong in proportion to its capacity to administer the functions that are brought into being.
# Legislation respecting these functions, difficult as it is, is relatively easy as compared with the enforcement of legislation, that is, the effective discharge of these functions in their most minute ramifications and for the public welfare.
# When a form of government, such as ours, provides for legal changes, by the process of discussion and open decision, to fit social changes, then effective and wise administration becomes the central prerequisite for the perdurance of government and society — to use a metaphor, becomes a foundation of government as a going concern.
# Unless the members of an administrative system are drawn from various classes and regions, unless careers are open in it to talents, unless the way is prepared by an appropriate scheme of general education, unless public officials are subjected to internal and external criticism of a constructive nature, then the public personnel will become a bureaucracy dangerous to society and to popular government.
# Unless, as David Lilienthal has recently pointed out in an address on the Tennessee Valley Authority, an administrative system is so constructed and operated as to keep alive local and individual responsibilities, it is likely to destroy the basic well-springs of activity, hope, and enthusiasm necessary to popular government and to the following of a democratic civilization.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

Administration, A Foundation of Government (1940)

Education , Hope , Way , Spring

“Business process reengineering encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Thomas H. Davenport, "Need radical innovation and continuous improvement? Integrate process reengineering and TQM." Planning Review 21.3 (1993): 6-12.

Business

“Each civilization may choose one of two roads to travel, that is, either fret itself to death, or pet itself to death. And in the course of doing one or the other, it eats its way into the Universe, turning cinders and flinders of stars into toilet seats, pegs, gears, cigarette holders and pillowcases, and it does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks to change that Fathomlessness into Something Fathomable.”

Stanisław Lem book The Cyberiad

In "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", §10
The Cyberiad (1967)

Death , Way , Travel , Star

“It is necessary to restore the dignity of the presidential office and cut it off decisively from non-transparent connections… For the first time in many years, I see a chance in Poland for major change. The presidential office can guarantee that these changes are carried out without undermining the social equilibrium.”

Lech Kaczyński (1949–2010) Polish politician, president of Poland

Rzeczpospolita interview (March 2005)

Decision , Chance , Time

“I find it hard living on my own, but I imagine I would find it difficult not living on my own. Perhaps I could still change my mind. That's everyone's drama. We all make different compromises. And, no, I don't regret not having children. Given my painting, children could have suffered. A mother must make her children come first: young children are helpless. Well, paintings are objects but they're also helpless.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

In 1958 (three years after breaking up with Greenberg, Frankenthaler married Robert Motherwell; their marriage ended in 1971.
1970s - 1980s, interview with Deborah Salomon in 'New York Times', 1989

Children , Imagination , Suffering , Painting

“It was hard for me to do the show (All-American Girl) because a lot of people didn't even understand the concept of Asian-American. I was on a morning show and the host said, "Awright, Margaret, we're changing over to an ABC affiliate! So why don't you tell our viewers in your native language that we're making that transition?" So I looked at the camera and said, "Um, they're changing over to an ABC affiliate."”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

People , Girl , Understanding

“Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess
The might, the majesty of loveliness?”

George Gordon Byron book The Bride of Abydos

Canto I, stanza 6.
The Bride of Abydos (1813)

Beauty , Feeling , Heart

“We know only what we do, what we make, what we construct; and all that we make, all that we construct, are realities. I call them images, not in Plato's sense (namely that they are only reflections of reality), but I hold that these images are the reality itself and that there is no reality beyond this reality except when in our creative process we change the images: then we have created new realities.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

Quote of Naum Gabo, 1950; as cited in: Eidos: a journal of painting, sculpture and design. Nr.1, p. 31
1936 - 1977

Reality , Sense

“I change as the times change. I'm a reflection of what's around me without trying at all.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Michael Saunders (March 18, 1994) "The reemergence of David Lee Roth", The Boston Globe, Section: Arts & Film, p. 75.

Time

“Reduced military budgets will release funds for the promotion and protection of human rights and for addressing global problems such as pandemics, climate change, deforestation and acute water shortages.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

Problem , Water

“By seizing the formerly little-known Height 102.0 – the Mamayev Hill - the Red Army fought its way to the fascists' den – Berlin. We are proud to say that our victory in Stalingrad radically changed the whole situation in the Second World War. And this victory meant that our Motherland had withstood one of the most difficult tests in its history.”

Aleksandr Vasilevsky (1895–1977) Soviet military commander

War , World , Way , History

“Easy contact was made on that fateful day with what obviously turned out to be a heretofore unknown type of UFO. I had hesitated for weeks to turn my cloudbuster pipes toward a "star," as if I had known that some of the blinking lights hanging in the sky were not planets or fixed stars but SPACE machines. With the fading out of the two "stars," the cloudbuster had suddenly changed into a SPACEGUN. From then onward, too, our approach to the problem of space became positive, affirmative, confident in using our carefully screened data.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Contact with Space (1957)

Fate , Confidence , Star , Problem

“Public policy changes in very large leaps, as in the New Deal of the 1930's, the Great Society of the mid-1960's, and the Reagan revolution of 1981. These spasms of reform are interspersed with periods of rest and stasis, as if the participants are exhausted from their exertion and catching their breath. But in any event, this does not look like Darwinian, gradualistic evolution.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 10, Some Further Reflections, p. 226

“In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner. One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Bush's America : Roach Motel" (6 June 2007) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21029.
2007

Law , Country

“Do you want an absolute prediction? Then you want only today, and you reject tomorrow. You are the ultimate conservative. You are trying to hold back movement in an infinitely changing universe. The verb to be does make idiots of us all.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

Dune Genesis (1980)

Universe

“The German Rendering. The German language was divided into as many dialects as tribes and states, and none served as a bond of literary union. Saxons and Bavarians, Hanoverians and Swabians, could scarcely understand each other. Each author wrote in the dialect of his district, Zwingli in his Schwyzerdütsch. "I have so far read no book or letter," says Luther in the preface to his version of the Pentateuch (1523), in which the German language is properly handled. Nobody seems to care sufficiently for it; and every preacher thinks he has a right to change it at pleasure, and to invent new terms." Scholars preferred to write in Latin, and when they attempted to use the mother tongue, as Reuchlin and Melanchthon did occasionally, they fell far below in ease and beauty of expression.
Luther brought harmony out of this confusion, and made the modern High German the common book language. He chose as the basis the Saxon dialect, which was used at the Saxon court and in diplomatic intercourse between the emperor and the estates, but was bureaucratic, stiff, heavy, involved, dragging, and unwieldy. He popularized and adapted it to theology and religion. He enriched it with the vocabulary of the German mystics, chroniclers, and poets. He gave it wings, and made it intelligible to the common people of all parts of Germany.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Which Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible did Luther use?

People , Pleasure , Books , Religion

“Nothing seems to have changed from those days, when Christian lives were more precious than the lives of the “infidels.””

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

Armenian crime amnesia? (2007)

“Nothing can silence me as long as I am alive. I don’t give any kind of excuse. If I cannot come out [of China] or I cannot go in [to China] this is not going to change my belief. But when I am there, I am in this condition: I see it, I see people who need help. Then you know, I just want to offer my possibility to help them.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Digital Activism in China, 2010

People , Silence , Help

“It is not inappropriate to describe the function of the teacher as that of acting to compel awareness. This is not to say that such compulsion contrives to bring a subject to act in the way in which the teacher believes the free man ought to act. It aspires only to assure that the subject is acting for himself and not as the mere instrument of unmediated impulses. There is even a compulsory quality about the Socratic method for, by asking questions, by enquiring in the reasons and grounds for doing this or that, it forces a man to conceive of himself in terms of intentions; it thereby forces him to be free.
It does not force him, however, to act in a manner substantively different from this original impulses. … The man who swings at his enemy in blind rage may, after lengthy consideration of creative alternatives, swing at him with cool deliberation. The intentionalist cannot accept the tradition of Kant, Green, and Bosanquet which polarizes conscious duty and preconscious desire and presupposes that reflective awareness will always produce substantive changes in the character of our goals, for to him it is the qualitative change that turns mere impulses into goals that is significant for freedom.”

Benjamin R. Barber (1939–2017) US political scientist

Source: Forced to be Free (1971), p. 78-79

Way , Question , Freedom , Teachers

“In Plato’s Republic one finds the proposition: God, being perfect, cannot change (not for the better, since "perfect" means that there can be no better; not for the worse, since ability to change for the worse, to decay, degenerate, or become corrupt, is a weakness, an imperfection). The argument may seem cogent, but it is so only if two assumptions are valid: that it is possible to conceive of a meaning for "perfect" that excludes change in any and every respect and that we must conceive God as perfect in just this sense.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (1984)

God , Sense , Perfection

“A critical aspect of the operation of the New Deal system was the long history of incremental change and resistance to more fundamental modification. This incremental adjustment orientation was apparent in government policy, managerial practice, and union bargaining objectives.”

Thomas A. Kochan (1947) American academic

Source: The transformation of American industrial relations, 1986, p. 45

History

“Over the coming months, I'll receive multiple treatments, I'll lose my hair, trim down a bit, but I will not stop working to change Maryland for the better. I'll be working hard, and making the decisions the people of this state elected me to make. … With my faith, family, and friends, I know that I won't just beat this disease but I will be a better and stronger person and governor on the other side.”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

" Full Remarks: Governor Larry Hogan Announces Cancer Diagnosis http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/06/22/full-remarks-governor-larry-hogan-announces-cancer-diagnosis/"(22 June 2015)

People , Disease , Family , Faith

“But I’ve suddenly changed my mind and turned more optimistic about our cosmic significance. Why? Because I’ve come to believe that advanced evolved life is very rare, yet has huge future potential, making our place in space and time remarkably significant.”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

Life , Time , Future

“On symbolic use of equalities and proportions. Chapter II.
The analytical method accepts as proven the most famous [ as known from Euclid ] symbolic use of equalities and proportions that are found in items such as:
1. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
2. Quantities being equal to the same quantity have equality between themselves. [a = c & b = c => a = b]
3. If equal quantities are added to equal quantities the resulting sums are equal.
4. If equals are subtracted from equal quantities the remains are equal.
5. If equal equal amounts are multiplied by equal amounts the products are equal.
6. If equal amounts are divided by equal amounts, the quotients are equal.
7. If the quantities are in direct proportion so also are they are in inverse and alternate proportion. [a:b::c:d=>b:a::d:c & a:c::b:d]
8. If the quantities in the same proportion are added likewise to amounts in the same proportion, the sums are in proportion. [a:b::c:d => (a+c):(b+d)::c:d]
9. If the quantities in the same proportion are subtracted likewise from amounts in the same proportion, the differences are in proportion. [a:b::c:d => (a-c):(b-d)::c:d]
10. If proportional quantities are multiplied by proportional quantities the products are in proportion. [a:b::c:d & e:f::g:h => ae:bf::cg:dh]
11. If proportional quantities are divided by proportional quantities the quotients are in proportion. [a:b::c:d & e:f::g:h => a/e:b/f::c/g:d/h]
12. A common multiplier or divisor does not change an equality nor a proportion. [a:b::ka:kb & a:b::(a/k):(b/k)]
13. The product of different parts of the same number is equal to the product of the sum of these parts by the same number. [ka + kb = k(a+b)]
14. The result of successive multiplications or divisions of a magnitude by several others is the same regardless of the sequential order of quantities multiplied times or divided into that magnitude.
But the masterful symbolic use of equalities and proportions which the analyst may apply any time is the following:
15. If we have three or four magnitudes and the product of the extremes is equal to the product means, they are in proportion. [ad=bc => a:b::c:d OR ac=b2 => a:b::b:c]
And conversely
10. If we have three or four magnitudes and the first is to the second as the second or the third is to the last, the product of the extremes is equal to that of means. [a:b::c:d => ad=bc OR a:b::b:c => ac=b2]
We can call a proportion the establishment of an equality [equation] and an equality [equation] the resolution of a proportion.”

François Viète (1540–1603) French mathematician

From Frédéric Louis Ritter's French Tr. Introduction à l'art Analytique (1868) utilizing Google translate with reference to English translation in Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (1968) Appendix
In artem analyticem Isagoge (1591)

Time , Success , Parting

“With the growth of the world population, the global climate change and the need for a greater healthy environment, access to water resources has become a crucial condition for the realization of an equitable international order, where the needs of the peoples are effectively addressed. In this regard, the need for international cooperation, including in joint effort with relevant non-state actors, is paramount to ensure water is made available to all without discrimination. Water is a human right, an enabling right, not a mere commodity.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Statement by Alfred de Zayas on World Water Day 22 March 2013 http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13175.
2013

People , World , Effort , Water

“Television is simultaneously blamed, often by the same people, for worsening the world and for being powerless to change it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Introduction'
Essays and reviews, Glued to the Box (1983)

People , World

“I was born by the river
In a little tent.
And just like the river,
I've been running ever since.It's been a long, long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come.
Oh, yes it is.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

A Change Is Gonna Come
Song lyrics, Ain't That Good News (1964)

Time

“I had a concussion nine years ago, and that changed things. I had always been sensitive musically, but now, since the concussion, I ﬁnd the emotion is there immediately. There is no build. I hear several chord changes — it could be three or four chord changes from a string orchestra — and, man, I’m just gushing tears. I don’t take it as a weakness. Sometimes it might get slightly embarrassing to observers. On the other hand, I’m not putting it on. I’m in no way trying to exaggerate feeling. My feelings are exactly the opposite. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t be quite as sensitive because then I wouldn’t have to go through this thing when I write.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Meet Clare Fischer" http://cdassassin.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/1999-interview-at-allaboutjazz-com/

Music , Way , Feeling , Tear

“I must freely confess that by continuing my sweeps of the heavens my opinion of the arrangement of the stars and their magnitudes, and of some other particulars, has undergone a gradual change…”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

p, 125
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens... (1811)

Star

“History teaches us that a given view has been abandoned in favor of another by all men, or by all competent men, or perhaps by only the most vocal men; it does not teach us whether the change was sound or whether the rejected view deserved to be rejected. Only an impartial analysis of the view in question, an analysis that is not dazzled by the victory or stunned by the defeat of the adherents of the view concerned—could teach us anything regarding the worth of the view and hence regarding the meaning of the historical change.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Natural Right and History (1953), p. 19

Men , History , Question , Victory

“In quantum physics, however, each observation implies an intervention in the observed. Because of the quantum physical laws of nature, a change of state of the observed is inevitably coupled to the observation process. So it's not a situation independent from the experiment that is observed, but we ourselves call forth the facts (or compel them to go in a certain direction to a disambiguation), that then become an observation.”

Pascual Jordan (1902–1980) German physicist and politician

In der Quantenphysik dagegen bedeutet jede Beobachtung einen Eingriff in das Beobachtete; eine Zustandsveränderung am Beobachteten ist auf Grund der quantenphysikalischen Naturgesetze mit dem Beobachtungsprozess zwangslaüfig verknüpft. Also nicht ein sowieso, unabhängig von diesem Experiment vorhandener Tatbestand wird wahrgenommen, sondern wir selber rufen die Tatbestände hervor (oder: nötigen sie in bestimmter Richtung zu einer Klärung), die dann zur Wahrnehmung gelangen.
Quantenmechanische Bemerkungen zur Biologie und Psychologie, Erkenntnis, Vol. 4 (1934). p. 228.

Law , Nature

“You know, I go to Washington and I see all these politicians, and I see the swamp, and it's not a good place, in fact, today I said we ought to change it from the word 'swamp' to the word 'cesspool' or perhaps to the word 'sewer.”

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

But it's not good, not good.
2010s, 2017, July, 2017 National Scout Jamboree (July 24, 2017)

“Professor Halbfass follows a scholar's methodology in determining the extent of Indo-Greek contact. He is determined to find a document, some written mention, some journey relating to this contact before he would admit it, but by their very nature such evidences can only be very rare considering the time that has lapsed and the changes that have been wrought. But if Professor Halbfass had followed a more inward method or criterion of looking at Greek literature, he would have easily found plentiful evidence of a living Indo-Greek contact, particularly at the deeper level of the spirit. Both shared a common spiritual approach; both intuited man and his world in the same way; both expressed their spiritual intuition in the language of Gods; both taught âtma-vâda, and the theory of Two Selves and Two Ways; both taught the theory of karma, rebirth and moksha. In fact, the Greece of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus has more in common with Hindu India than with Christian Europe.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

God , World , Way , Literature

“Well, I don't know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different. We're in hock to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They're holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We also are running hundred of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years.”

Jack Cafferty (1942) American journalist

On the April 9, 2008 broadcast of CNN's "Situation Room", when asked to comment on the United States' relationship with China, Cafferty responded in reference to the Chinese Government and the Americans Government's political and business relationship.
2008

War , Food , Thinking , Painting

“Try not to change the world. You will fail. Try to love the world. Lo, the world is changed. Changed forever.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

August 31
Meditations: Food For The Soul (1970)

Love , World

“And now we get down to two magic words that tell us how to accomplish just about anything we want to accomplish, two powerful words that can change any situation, two dynamic words that all too few people use. And what are these two amazing words? Do it!”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Power Of The Plus Factor (1987)

People

“Though Wallis was advanced for his times and accepted negative numbers, he thought they were larger than infinity but not less than zero. In his Arithmetica Infinitorum (1655), he argued that since the ratio a/0, when a is positive, is infinite, then, when the denominator is changed to a negative number, as in a/b with b negative, the ratio must be greater than infinity.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 253.

Time

“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change."”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Recent Poetry," The Yale Review (Autumn 1955) [p. 237]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

People , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“As I've always said, the sun is the "Big Kahuna" of climate change on Earth. Everything else is secondary, even though man's opinion of his own self importance in the scheme of things often dictates otherwise.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

The Sun has a dimmer switch? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/02/06/the-sun-has-a-dimmer-switch/, wattsupwiththat.com, February 6, 2007.
2007

Sun

“You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about yourself.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Shampoo Planet (1992)

Life , Fate , Waiting

“Solitude is greater than I anticipated. My sense of values is changing, and many things which before were in solution in my mind now seem to be crystallizing. I am better able to tell what in the world is wheat for me and what is chaff. In fact, my definition of success itself is changing.”

Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957) Medal of Honor recipient and United States Navy officer

Source: Alone (1938), Ch. 6

World , Sense , Solitude , Success

“The point is professionalization. Academics-in-training worry about whether they are yet, can ever be, or even want to be professional intellectuals of the kind they are changing themselves into. Second or third or fourth year graduate students have not taken binding vows. They may have second thoughts. Nor have they been finally chosen. They might flunk out. Their committee might turn their theses down. Who knows what might happen?”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Writing for Social Scientists (1986), p. 52.

Training

“We are referred to the period the Revolution [of 1688]. We are told to be contented with those securities for our liberties which our ancestors provided…It is pleaded as an invincible bar to any improvement proposed in favour of the people, though it is not allowed the smallest authority when it is opposed to an enlargement of power: when the crown is to be invested with any new prerogatives, the ancient landmarks may be removed without a scruple, but they are sacred against the best founded claims of the people…The point now is, to inquire, whether, in the course of human affairs, and the changes which time and events have produced, the principle of freedom has preserved those bulwarks and securities with which it was the object of the Revolution to invest it? Whether the crown has not gained a degree of influence beyond the regulated portion assigned by the establishments of our ancestors, and which either has been, or threatens to become, injurious to cause of liberty and to the of the empire?”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (25 April 1800), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXV (London: 1819), pp. 91-93.
1800s

People , Freedom , Time

“I could issue manifestos summoning seraphim to revolt against the Haavenly State we're in, or trumpets to summon American mankind to rebellion against the Authority which has frozen all skulls in the cold war, That is, I could, make sense, invoke politics and try organize a union of opinion about what to do to Cuba, China, Russia, Bolivia, New Jersey, etc. However since in America the folks are convinced their heaven is all right, those manifestos make no dent except in giving authority & courage to the small band of hipsters who are disaffected like gentle socialists. Meanwhile the masses the proletariat the people are smug and the source of the great Wrong. So the means then is to communicate to the grand majority- and say I or anybody did write a balanced documented account not only of the lives of America but the basic theoretical split from the human body as Reich has done- But the people are so entrenched in their present livelihood that all the facts in the world-such as that China will be 1/4 of world pop makes no impression at all as a national political fact that intelligent people can take counsel on and deal with humorously & with magnificence. So that my task as a politician is to dynamite the emotional rockbed of inertia and spiritual deadness that hangs over the cities and makes everybody unconsciously afraid of the cops- To enter the Soul on a personal level and shake the emotion with the Image of some giant reality-of any kind however irrelevant to transient political issue- to touch & wake the soul again- That soul which is asleep or hidden in armor or unable to manifest itself as free life of God on earth- To remind by chord of deep groan of the Unknown to most Soul- then further politics will take place when people seize power over their universe and end the long dependence on an external authority or rhetorical set sociable emotions-so fixed they don't admit basic personal life changes-like not being afraid of jails and penury, while wandering thru gardens in high civilization.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Gordon Ball (1977), Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties, Grove Press NY
Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties

Life , God , War , People

“Striving for excellence means never being satisfied—always doing things to keep improving, even if it means changing everything we do. It means we never feel that we have arrived. We don’t believe our press clippings. We don’t get complacent and pat ourselves on the backs. We talk about what we could have done better. We believe that we can achieve extraordinary results when we strive for excellence in all we do.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 33.
On Striving for Excellence

Feeling

“In leaving Britain, the early emigrants risked not merely their life savings but their very lives. Their voyages were never without hazard; their destinations were often unhealthy and inhospitable. To us, their decision to gamble everything on a one-way ticket seems baffling. Yet without millions of such tickets - some purchased voluntarily, some not - there could have been no British Empire. For the indispensible foundation of the Empire was mass migration: the biggest in human history. This Britannic exodus changed the world. It turned whole continents white.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

Life , World , Way , History

“Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Fear , Reality , Loneliness

“Organizations may try to change constantly; but, after a certain point in the structuration of an organizational field, the aggregate effect of individual change is to lessen the extent of diversity within the field.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 148

“Guru: Today I will discourse upon the violence in astronomy.
Disciple: Revered Sir! Will you be describing the violent phenomenon in the Universe?
Guru: Yes, and I will also dwell upon the controversies amongst the astronomers about what these events imply – controversies which are no less violent than the phenomena themselves

The one aspect of the star-studded night sky which impresses the casual observer most is its tranquility. The peace and quiet of the heavens with the marked contrast to the hurly burly of life on the earth have inspired poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers from time immemorial. Even the amateur astronomer viewing the night sky from his proverbial roof top telescope sees a picture which changes very slowly from night to night. The occasional visit of comet, the fall of a meteorite, or in these modern times the passing of a man made satellite are examples of events which introduce transitory variation on an apparently steady cosmic theme.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Source: Jayant V. Narlikar Violent Phenomena in the Universe http://books.google.com/books?id=VFbCAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover, Courier Dover Publications, 16 October 2012, p. 1

Life , Peace , Star , Universe

Quotes about change page 67

Quotes about change
page 67