Change Quotes

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

"For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves we must die to one life before we can enter another."

"I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people."

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have."

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

"To improve is to change to be perfect is to change often."

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts."

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living."

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."

"Always remember that the future comes one day at a time."

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."

"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies."

"Don't change on me. Don't extort me unless you intend to do it forever."

"Change in all things is sweet."

"Money and success don't change people they merely amplify what is already there."

"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom."

"I can't really change my life to accommodate people who are jealous. I don't see why I should."

"All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward."

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

"For changes to be of any true value, they've got to be lasting and consistent."

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."

"It's the most unhappy people who most fear change."

"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."

"Change brings opportunity."

"Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene."

"If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change."

"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance."

"Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes."

"There is nothing permanent except change."

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."

"Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer."

"Most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change."

"Change before you have to."

"Change means that what was before wasn't perfect. People want things to be better."

"Change will never happen when people lack the ability and courage to see themselves for who they are."

"Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal."

"Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight."

"One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority."

"Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."

"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change what I can say is they must change if they are to get better."

"Not only is women's work never done, the definition keeps changing."

"One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others."

"Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change where we are right, make us easy to live with."

"True life is lived when tiny changes occur."

"Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk."

"Relentless, repetitive self talk is what changes our self-image."

"Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes."

"When it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change... you will change."

"There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't."

"You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler."

"The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance."

"Change is inevitable. Change is constant."

"All I want to do is change the world."

"Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin."

"Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly."

"Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time."

"In a progressive country change is constant change is inevitable."

"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind."

"In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy."

"Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?"

"If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior."

"The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions."

"Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages."

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."

"Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it."

"Change alone is unchanging."

"To change what you get you must change who you are."

"Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed."

"When you are through changing, you are through."

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality."

"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress."

"All things must change to something new, to something strange."

"A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change."

"The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow."

"The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being."

"Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job."

"When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet."

"People change and forget to tell each other."

"True change takes place in the imagination."

"To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior."

"I don't know if you can change things, but it's a drop in the ocean."

"If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization."

"Change is such hard work."

"What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance."

"If you feel like it's difficult to change, you will probably have a harder time succeeding."

"The more things change, the more they are the same."

"The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing."

"Change is not only likely, it's inevitable."

"Change occurs in direct proportion to dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction never changes."

"We emphasize that we believe in change because we were born of it, we have lived by it, we prospered and grew great by it. So the status quo has never been our god, and we ask no one else to bow down before it."

"The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives."

"If you can change three lives in 10, three lives in a hundred, that's got to be good, hasn't it?"

"Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them."

"As with anything creative, change is inevitable."

"I try to contrast life today is full of contrast... We have to change."

"Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change."

"I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it."

"Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep."

"People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician."

"Our fathers valued change for the sake of its results we value it in the act."

"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome."

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

"Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

"The pessimist complains about the wind the optimist expects it to change the realist adjusts the sails."

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

"We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change."

"You change your life by changing your heart."

"There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles."

"The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history."

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve."

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."

"Chinese people themselves, they really want change."

"I am invariably late for appointments - sometimes as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing."

"For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of."

"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."

"Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home... it's your responsibility to love it, or change it."

"If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree."

"You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past."

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

"I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it."

"The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart."

"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."

"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."

"You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority."

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change."

"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character."

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."

"Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages."

"What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds."

"I hope everyone that is reading this is having a really good day. And if you are not, just know that in every new minute that passes you have an opportunity to change that."

"For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise."

"Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming."

"Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change."

"It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent."

"We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish."

"Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change."

"The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them they change and everyone looks up to them."

"Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change."

"But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul."

"People can try to reinvent themselves. I don't think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you've done up to now."

"I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change."

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure , the process is its own reward."

"A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you."

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

"Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard."

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."

"In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first."

"Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant."

"Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor."

"The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure to whatever we choose. By changing what we link pain and pleasure to, we will instantly change our behaviors."

"What I learned in jail is that I can't change. I can't live a different lifestyle-this is it. This is the life that they gave and this is the life that I made."

"Music can change the world because it can change people."

"Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him."

"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight."

"Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."

"The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds."

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

"Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change."

"Things don't have to change the world to be important."

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."

"Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands."

"Change is the end result of all true learning."

"People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines... There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters."

"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds."

"There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change."

"Change your opinions, keep to your principles change your leaves, keep intact your roots."

"The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal."

"I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"

"In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?"

"Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining."

"If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system."

"Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments."

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times."

"Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world."

"There is nothing so stable as change."

"I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else."

"To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly."

"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness."

"I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it."

"Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable."

"No one is in control of your happiness but you therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change."

"Change yourself and your work will seem different."

"Be content with what you are, and wish not change nor dread your last day, nor long for it."

"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world."

"Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change."

"I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver."

"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction."

"I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me."

"If a person doesn't change, there's something really wrong with him."

"If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim."

"Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future."

"Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them."

"Now we're in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change - we're doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change - inch by inch, day by day."

"Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape."

"Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact."

"Of course, there is no question that Libya - and the world - will be better off with Gaddafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."

"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them."

"The universe is change our life is what our thoughts make it."

"This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50."

"We can have no progress without change, whether it be basketball or anything else."

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."

"Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends."

"Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it."

"Don't knock the weather nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."

"I was willing to accept what I couldn't change."

"It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy."

"There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change."

"Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you'll see them all around you."

"This is the America that I love. This is a great people. We can do anything. We can achieve anything. We've got a government that has gotten in the way of the American people. We're going to change that in November."

"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things."

"I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself."

"Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority."

"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."

"The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change."

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."

"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself."

"Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves."

"Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment."

"If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle."

"Only God who made us can touch us and change us and save us from ourselves."

"The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity."

"The challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future."

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever."

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

"Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you."

"I think it's naive to pray for world peace if we're not going to change the form in which we live."

"It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves."

"No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal."

"He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind."

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

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

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

"Things do not change; we change."

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Do not resist them; that only creates sorrow."

"If you do not like something, change it. If you cannot change it, change your attitude."

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

"Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you do not belong."

"One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world."

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes."

"If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down."