quotations about change
People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.
LAWRENCE BLOCK
In the Midst of Death
There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Smiley's People
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kéramos
You can't change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world
DEPECHE MODE
"New Dress"
Change happened and you thought it was forever, and immediately there were all the enemies of that change making common cause and meeting in the cloakrooms.
C. J. CHERRYH
Chanur's Legacy
The very word "change" has changed. When I was young--and not just because I was young--we looked forward with confident impatience to change. Planned, controlled, beneficent change would continue to clear slums, sweep up the remains of empire, raise living and educational standards, tidy away--firmly but kindly--the last aboriginals who still raved about martial glory or the pride of wealth. Now, as it seems to me, change is set almost exclusively in the minor key, change seen overwhelmingly as loss.
NEAL ASCHERSON
"Chords of Identity in a Minor Key", Games with Shadows
You don't have to love change to be successful, but you need to be willing to accept it. Change is a catalyst for personal growth. It gets you out of a rut, it gives you a fresh start, and it affords you an opportunity to reevaluate your direction. If you resist change, you're really resisting success. Learn flexibility, or learn to like living with your failures.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Motivated to Succeed
When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
EDWARD ALBEE
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world. And the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.
BILL CLINTON
speech at the Urban League National Convention in San Diego, California, July 27, 1992
The world's a scene of changes, and to be
Constant, in Nature were inconstancy.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Inconstancy
My life changes all the time.
Things were different when you were mine.
You loved me yesterday.
Now these changes have come to stay.
ROY ORBISON
"Changes"
The sad thing is that, even though we know our lives aren't working in certain areas, we are still afraid to change. We are locked into our comfort zone, no matter how self-destructive it may be. Yet, the only way to get out of our comfort zone and to be free of our problems and limitations is to get uncomfortable.
ROBERT ANTHONY
Beyond Positive Thinking
All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Parable of the Talents
Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
You gotta run, this world is standin' still
You gotta believe, you can make it up that hill
You gotta know, you can have anything
You gotta be the best that you can be
But don't change for me.
GIN BLOSSOMS
"Don't Change for Me"
It's the way people try not to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting them be what they are.
DR. MEREDITH GREY
"With You I'm Born Again", Grey's Anatomy
I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.
DAVID SEDARIS
Naked
To change the name and not the letter,
Is a change for the worst, and not for the better.
ROBERT CHAMBERS
Book of Days
When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well let us realize
Oh, that a change can only come
When we stand together as one, yeah, yeah, yeah
MICHAEL JACKSON & LIONEL RICHIE
"We Are the World"
Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? Nah. The big moments are gonna come, you can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that count. That's when you find out who you are.
WHISTLER
"Becoming: Part Two", Buffy the Vampire Slayer