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Quotes about change

166 quotes from 131 people

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By the time we awaken faintly to the awareness that we have been socially conditioned, we find ourselves so indoctrinated that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to break the old patterns.
Frank Herbert1920–1986“Science Fiction and a World in Crisis” in Science Fiction: Today and Tomorrow (1974) edited by Reginald Bretnor
- Thinking
Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.
Hermann Hesse1877–1962Steppenwolf (1927), PrefaceIn context
- History
Build thee more stately mansions, my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894The Chambered Nautilus (1858)In context
- Inspiration
Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, “We’ve always done it this way.” I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.
Grace Hopper1906–1992The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper (1987)
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Ends and Means (1937), Ch. 1, p. 9 [2012 reprint]
- Technology
There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.
Henrik Ibsen1828–1906Letter to Georg Brandes (3 January 1882).
When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve: “My dear, we live in an age of transition.”
William Ralph Inge1860–1954Assessments and Anticipations (1929), p. 261
- Comedy
So the pendulum swings, now violently, now slowly; and every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.
William Ralph Inge1860–1954“Democracy and the Future” The Atlantic Monthly (March 1922)
- History
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
Washington Irving1783–1859Tales of a Traveler (1824), Preface, p. 7
- Comedy
I’m not myself⁠—I’m somebody else⁠—that’s me yonder-no⁠—that’s somebody else, got into my shoes⁠—I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and everything’s changed, and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!
Washington Irving1783–1859Rip Van Winkle (1819)In context
A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.
Henry James1843–1916“Robert Louis Stevenson,” Century Magazine (April 1888)
We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
William James1842–1910Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), Lecture V, Pragmatism and Common Sense
We do not escape our boundaries or our innermost being. We do not change. It is true we may be transformed, but we always walk within our boundaries, within the marked-off circle.
Ernst Jünger1895–1998The Glass Bees (1957)
- Character
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche, Frankfurt (25 June 1963)
- Time