1,702 Change Quotes

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there.

Autumn to winter, winter into spring, Spring into summer, summer into fall, - So rolls the changing year, and so we change; Motion so swift, we know not that we move.

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.

The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.

There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.

I begin with the young. We older ones are used up but my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men and boys! What material! With you and I, we can make a new world.

You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.

Lucifer also has died with God, and from his ashes has arisen a spiteful demon who does not even understand the object of his venture.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

I turned vegetarian after 9/11. A friend of mine came back from New York and said that he couldn't stand the smell of burnt flesh. It immediately reminded me of a barbecue.

One man with courage makes a majority.

You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old, something that's dying and something that's being born.

During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered.

So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore.

People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.

Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.

A brave world, sir, full of religion, knavery, and change: we shall shortly see better days.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Change in all things is sweet.

Thought may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task-work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better; By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done Do it, Time is on the wing!

O tell me, friends, while yet we part, And heart can yet be heard of heart, O tell me then, for what is it Our early plan of life we quit; From all our old intentions range, And why does all so wholly change? O tell me, friends, while yet we part!

My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o'er My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor; For love, departed once, comes back No more again, no more.

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried.

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

I try to take life as it comes, and just hope it keeps coming.

In this age of grand illusion, you walked into my life out of my dreams - I don't need another change - still you forced a way into my scheme of things. You say we're growing, growing heart and soul In this age of grand illusion, you walked into my life out of my dreams.

Hang on to your wigs and keys.

Will you be there when the big door swings open?

It's so damn hard to bloom: to change. Even when you want to change, want it more than anything in the world, it's hard. Desire to change isn't enough. Or desperation. Couldn't be done without: love.

Change isn't easy, Micky. Changing the way you live means changing the way you think. Changing the way you think means changing what you believe about life. That's hard, sweetie. When we make our own misery, we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change, because the misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.

What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order.

If I had believed him, everything would have been turned upside down... all would have been turned topsy-turvy to make room for impractical theories.

Not for one second will my self hold still, but wanders anywhere, everywhere it can turn. Not you, it is I am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light, the pulsing shadow. You the unchanging presence, in whom all moves and changes. How can I focus my flickering, perceive at the fountain's heart the sapphire I know is there?

The way that we weren't is what we'll become.

Being in a band is really great when you're 20. When you're 30, it's kind of 'Spinal Tap,' and when you're 40, it's just pathetic.

I say that I am myself, but what is this Self of mine But a knot in the tangled skein of things where chance and change combine?

The two women were alone in the London flat. 'The point is,' said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, 'the point is, that as far as I can see, everything's cracking up.'

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream bites this universe in two, peels forever out of it's grave and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of Revolution, Spurred and whipped to frenzy, Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea Over the precipice they were nearing, And fell from his back in precipitate awe To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.

The difference between the past and present selves of the same individual is so great as to make them different persons for all moral purposes. That single fact we were just speaking of-the fact that no man would care for vengeance on one who had injured him, provided he knew that all memory of the offence had been blotted utterly from his enemy's mind-proves the entire proposition. It shows that it is not the present self of his enemy that the avenger is angry with at all, but the past self. Even in the blindness of his wrath he intuitively recognizes the distinction between the two.

On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the hour strikes.

Great let me call him, for he conquered me.

Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.

The gods are growing old; The stars are singing Golden hair to gray Green leaf to yellow leaf,-or chlorophyl To xanthophyl, to be more scientific.

It is a wary business, walking about a strange house you are to know well. Only cats and dogs with their more expressive bodies enact the tension we share with them at such times. The you inside you gathers up defensively: something is stealing upon you every moment; you will never be quite the same again. These new unsmiling lights, reflections and objects are to become your memories, riveted to you closer than friends or lovers, going with you, even, into the grave: worse, they may become dear and fasten like so many leeches on your heart.

Things keep changing and things keep happening. I never really run out of ideas. I guess as long as I'm interested, I'll be interesting.

What I used to be will pass away, and then you'll see That all I want now is happiness for you and me.

For a long time I've been walking down life's road with my two pals, Bad Luck and Bad Choices. Fortunately I'm a big believer in new beginnings, new friends, and running from my problems. So one day I decided to head for the island. Aloha, my name is Jack.

After secretly observing the unstudied grace of her movements, the most celebrated picture-maker of the province burned the implements of his craft, and began life anew as a trainer of performing elephants.

The maple tree that night Without a wind or rain Let go its leaves Because its time had come.

The shadow of a dove Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings; And down the valley through the crying trees The body of the darker storm flies; brings With its new air the breath of sunken seas And slender tenuous thunder . . . But I wait . . . Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain- Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate, Happier winds that pile her hair; Again They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.

Day was breaking on the world. Light, hope, and freedom pierced with vitalizing ray the clouds and the miasma that hung so thick over the prostrate Middle Age, once noble and mighty, now a foul image of decay and death. Kindled with new life, the nations gave birth to a progeny of heroes, and the stormy glories of the sixteenth century rose on awakened Europe. But Spain was the citadel of darkness,-a monastic cell, an inquisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the bulwark of the Church, against whose adamantine wall the waves of innovation beat in vain.

The Revolution began at the top,-in the world of fashion, birth, and intellect,-and propagated itself downwards.

We have undertaken a new order of things; yet we progress to it under the framework and in the spirit and intent of the American Constitution. We have proceeded throughout the Nation a measurable distance on the road toward this new order.

Throughout the world, change is the order of the day. In every Nation economic problems, long in the making, have brought crises of many kinds for which the masters of old practice and theory were unprepared. In most Nations social justice, no longer a distant ideal, has become a definite goal, and ancient Governments are beginning to heed the call. Thus, the American people do not stand alone in the world in their desire for change. We seek it through tested liberal traditions, through processes which retain all of the deep essentials of that republican form of representative government first given to a troubled world by the United States.

'Hey, there's something falling down in there,' said the chief clerk. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that what had happened to him might some day also happen to the chief clerk. There was no denying that anything was possible.

How much my life has changed, and yet how unchanged it has remained at bottom! When I think back and recall the time when I was still a member of the canine community, sharing in all its preoccupations, a dog among dogs, I find on closer examination that from the very beginning I sensed some discrepancy, some little maladjustment, causing a slight feeling of discomfort which not even the most decorous public functions could eliminate; more, that sometimes, no, not sometimes, but very often, the mere look of some fellow dog of my own circle that I was fond of, the mere look of him, as if I had just caught it for the first time, would fill me with helpless embarrassment and fear, even with despair.

'I set out as a steeplejack in my youth to preserve chimneys. I've finished by knocking most of them down.'

'I have a wash more now than I used to y'know... I have a shower everynight.'

'I've stopped all that promiscuous lifestyle. I've stopped having sex and started growing tulips.'

'I hate doing the same things over again, I like to see what's happening now and try and sort of incorporate all those forms into Queen.'

Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments.

The main point about liberalism is that it wants to go elsewhere, not to stand still. Though today the contrary impression may sometimes be caused by the fact that there was a time when liberalism was more widely accepted and some of its objectives closer to being achieved, it has never been a backward-looking doctrine. There has never been a time when liberal ideals were fully realized and when liberalism did not look forward to further improvement of institutions. Liberalism is not averse to evolution and change; and where spontaneous change has been smothered by government control, it wants a great deal of change of policy.

Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.

The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig - with the stress on the 'old.'

Though quieta non movere may at times be a wise maxim for the statesman it cannot satisfy the political philosopher. He may wish policy to proceed gingerly and not before public opinion is prepared to support it, but he cannot accept arrangements merely because current opinion sanctions them. In a world where the chief need is once more, as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to free the process of spontaneous growth from the obstacles and encumbrances that human folly has erected, his hopes must rest on persuading and gaining the support of those who by disposition are 'progressives,' those who, though they may now be seeking change in the wrong direction, are at least willing to examine critically the existing and to change it wherever necessary.

Every change in conditions will make necessary some change in the use of resources, in the direction and kind of human activities, in habits and practices. And each change in the actions of those affected in the first instance will require further adjustments that will gradually extend through the whole of society. Every change thus in a sense creates a 'problem' for society, even though no single individual perceives it as such; it is gradually 'solved' by the establishment of a new overall adjustment.

It is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

Threefold the stride of Time, from first to last! Loitering slow, the Future creepeth - Arrow-swift, the Present sweepeth - And motionless forever stands the Past.

'Har under ar askan av en man som hade vanan att skjuta allt till morgondagen. Dock battrades han pa sitt yttersta och dog verkligen den 31 januari 1972'

The power of changing oneself lies not in the mind, but in the body and the feelings. Unfortunately, however, our body and our feelings are so constituted that they don't care a jot about anything so long as they are happy. They live for the moment and their memory is short. The mind alone lives for tomorrow. Each has its own merits. The merit of the mind is that it looks ahead. But it is only the other two that can 'do.'

In literature, science, art, philosophy, religion, in individual and above all in social and political life, we can observe how the line of the development of forces deviates from its original direction and goes, after a certain time, in a diametrically opposite direction, still preserving its former name.

The appeal to heaven breaks off. The petals begin to fall, in self-forgiveness. It is a flower. On this mountainside it is dying.

Revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.

The kind of doorhandles which is recessed a little bit into the door and your fingers actually go in a little before they actually grab it. Don't you like that? I like that. That's why they're not going to make it anymore. They found out we liked that.

What you have witnessed since Christopher Hitchens's opposition to the 1991 invasion of Iraq] is something unique in natural history: the first ever metamorphosis of a butterfly back into a slug.

I myself believe, perhaps on insufficient grounds, that the common man will win his fight sooner or later, but I want it to be sooner and not later - some time within the next hundred years, say, and not some time within the next ten thousand years. That was the real issue of the Spanish war, and of the last war, and perhaps of other wars yet to come.

'In America literary reputations come and go so swiftly,' I complained, fatuously. [Santayana's] answer was swift. 'It would be insufferable if they did not.'

Who could have possibly envisioned an erection- an election in Iraq at this point in history?

And there is a new history now that has been done, and that history needs to be included in the process.

Our military and our nation are entering another period of consequences - a time of rapid change and momentous choices.

The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.

How to keep-is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?

Wir wollen nicht alles anders, aber vieles besser machen.