„Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.“

— Winston S. Churchill

Last update March 26, 2022.

Winston S. Churchill602

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874 - 1965

Related quotes

„The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.“

— Socrates classical Greek Athenian philosopher -470 - -399 BC

This is actually a quotation http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&f=false from a character named Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior, by Dan Millman.
Misattributed

Secret, Change, Fight, Motivational

„Instead of fighting the old, use that energy to build the new, and promote what you love.“

— Ralph Smart

Fight, Love, Making love

„"Old" and "new" are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested all our past, our wisdom, our memories, our sadness, our sense of realism. We cannot do without faith in the new, because in what is new is invested all our energy, our capacity for optimism, our blind biological yearning, our ability to forget — the healing ability that makes reconciliation possible.“

— Susan Sontag American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933 - 2004

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

Wisdom, World, Sadness, Faith

„I urge the AFP and also the PNP to aggressively go out there and fill the yearly quotas for new recruits. Spend the budget intended for hiring new personnel. Don't let the old system prevail again where the allocation for hiring new personnel is scrimped on so that the amount can be converted into savings and diverted to line the pockets of some unscrupulous individuals. This has already cost so many lives and has orphaned thousands of wives and children.“

— Francis Escudero Filipino politician 1969

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/breaking-news/739506/senator-urges-afp-pnp-review-troop-strength
2011

Children

„Disarmament is illogical and futile, unless one is prepared to regard the available means of production and social organization as affording unique social ends. To divert electrical energy and circuitry into atomic bombs shows the same imaginative power as wiring the dining-room chairs to enable one to electrocute the sitter in the event that he might prove hostile. It is part of the age-old habit of using new means for old purposes instead of discovering what are the new goals contained in the new means.“

— Marshall McLuhan Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a communicatio… 1911 - 1980

Source: 1970s, From Cliché to Archetype (1970), p.202

Hostility, Age, Imagination, Parting

„Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.“

— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

Love, Truth, World, Justice

„What one needs to do at every moment of one's life is to put an end to the old world and to begin a new world.“

— Nikolai Berdyaev Russian philosopher 1874 - 1948

The Beginning and the End (1947)

Life, World

„Chronic disputes which divert precious resources from the needs of the people or drain the energies of both sides serve the interests of no one — and the badge of responsibility in the modern world is a willingness to seek peaceful solutions.“

— John F. Kennedy 35th president of the United States of America 1917 - 1963

1963, UN speech

People, World, Peace

„Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives
you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!“

— Brian Tracy American motivational speaker and writer 1944

„But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy?“

— Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

interview on WBAI, January 1992 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9201-propaganda.html.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: The point of public relations slogans like "Support Our Troops" is that they don't mean anything... that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is going to be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

Question, Support

„So if you happen to bump into a Democrat candidate, you might want to ask this simple question: What's your plan? If they say they want to protect the homeland, but oppose the Patriot Act, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to uncover terrorist plots, but oppose listening in on terrorist conversations, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to stop new attacks on our country, but oppose letting the CIA detain and question the terrorists who might know what those plots are, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to win the war on terror, but call for America to pull out from what al Qaeda says is the central front in this war, ask them this question: What's your plan?…The truth is, the Democrats can't answer that question. Harsh criticism is not a plan for victory. Second-guessing is not a strategy.“

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

Remarks by the President at Missouri Victory 2006 Rally http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061103-1.html (November 3, 2006)
2000s, 2006

War, Truth, Question, Victory

„… there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.“

— Mary Oliver American writer 1935 - 2019

Life, World

„The new media are not bridges between man and nature - they are nature…The new media are not ways of relating us to the old world; they are the real world and they reshape what remains of the old world at will.“

— Marshall McLuhan Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a communicatio… 1911 - 1980

Media as the New Nature, 1969, p. 14
1960s

World, Way, Nature

„We do not want new orders. What the world wants is an old order of 2,000 years ago – the order of the man of Galilee.“

— Jan Smuts military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa 1870 - 1950

On "a post-war new world order" envisaged by the Allies during World War II, as cited in Antony Lentin, 2010, Jan Smuts – Man of courage and vision, p. 144. ISBN 978-1-86842-390-3

World