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Quotes about change

166 quotes from 131 people

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The greatest changes in social life are wrought imperceptibly, and are only seen from afar.
Anatole France1844–1924The White Stone (1905), Ch. III, p. 135
- History
Only a crisis⁠—actual or perceived⁠—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.
Milton Friedman1912–2006Capitalism and Freedom (1962), preface to the 1982 edition, p. ix
- Ideas
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost1874–1963Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923)In context
- Beauty
- Nature
I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Garfield’s Words (1882)
We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.
Bill Gatesborn 1955
- Time
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
Kahlil Gibran1883–1931A Handful of Sand on the Shore, as quoted in Alterquest: the Alternative Quest for Answers (2006) by Karen Fiala, p. 127
Generally change in our society is incremental. Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg1933–2020Ian Millhisser (October 8, 2015): Justice Ginsburg’s Warning To A Dysfunctional Nation. In: ThinkPrgoress
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled Utopian.
Emma Goldman1869–1940“Socialism: Caught in the Political Trap”, a lecture (c. 1912), published in Red Emma Speaks, Part 1 (1972) edited by Alix Kates Shulman
No real social change has ever come about without a revolution.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), “Anarchism: What It Really Stands For”
We Americans write our own history. And the chapters of which we’re proudest are the ones where we had the courage to change.
Al Goreborn 1948Speech at the Democratic National Convention (28 August 1996).
- America
- Courage
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
Che Guevara1928–1967Intercontinental Press (Vol. 3 January-April 1965)
- Politics
If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Václav Havel1936–2011Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 1: Growing Up “Outside”, p. 11
The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological — technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science.
Stephen Hawking1942–2018From Hawking’s article A Brief History of Relativity, in Time magazine (31 December 1999)
- Science
- Technology
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Ch. XX: The Flower of Eden
- Happiness
You cannot step twice into the same river.
Heraclitus535–470 BCFragment 91