Change

"But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future."

"The world goes up and the world goes down. And the sunshine follows the rain; And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown Can never come over again."

"Change tends to fill people with this incredible fear."

"Coups de fourches ni d'étrivières, Ne lui font changer de manières."

"They met with cold words, and yet colder looks: Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought The other only changed, himself the same."

"A great change in life is like a cold bath in winter — we all hesitate at the first plunge."

"Any great change is like cold water in winter — one shrinks from the first plunge; and a lover may be excused who shivers a little at the transmigration into a husband. (Vol.II, Chapter 7)"

"The pleasure of change is opposed by that of habit ; and if we love best that to which we are accustomed, we like best that which is new."

"It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself."

"Time fleeth on, Youth soon is gone, Naught earthly may abide; Life seemeth fast, But may not last— It runs as runs the tide."

"It is owing to the changeability of sciences and philosophy that they are so unproductive of glory, either at the hands of contemporaries or posterity. For when new discoveries, or new ideas and conjectures, greatly alter the condition of this or that science from its present state, how will the writings and thoughts of men now celebrated in these sciences be regarded? Who, for instance, now reads Galileo's works? Yet in his time they were most wonderful; nor could better and nobler books, full of greater discoveries and grander conceptions, be then written on such subjects. But now every tyro in physics or mathematics surpasses Galileo in his knowledge. Again, how many people in the present day read the writings of Francis Bacon? Who troubles himself about Malebranche? And how much time will soon be bestowed on the works of Locke, if the science almost founded by him progresses in future as rapidly as it gives promise of doing?"

"Truly the very intellectual force, industry, and labour, which philosophers and scientists expend in the pursuit of their glory, are in time the cause of its extinction or obscurément. For by their own great exertions they open out a path for the still further advancement of the science, which in time progresses so rapidly that their writings and names fall gradually into oblivion. And it is certainly difficult for most men to esteem others for a knowledge greatly inferior to their own. Who can doubt that the twentieth century will discover error in what the wisest of us regard as unquestionable truths, and will surpass us greatly in their knowledge of the truth?"

"For the first time in human history we have available the production technologies to create unprecedented abundance. All this converges into an extraordinary opportunity to combine the hardware of our technologies of abundance and the software of archetypal shifts. Such a combination has never been available at this scale or at this speed: it enables us to consciously design money to work for us, instead of us for it. I propose that we choose to develop money systems that will enable us to attain sustainability and community healing on a local and global scale. These objectives are in our grasp within less than one generation's time. Whether we materialize them or not will depend on our capacity to cooperate with each other to consciously reinvent our money."

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

"I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League, have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap."

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

"But the nearer the dawn the darker the night, And by going wrong all things come right; Things have been mended that were worse, And the worse, the nearer they are to mend."

"The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships. Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goals. For Black and white, old and young, lesbian and heterosexual women alike, this can mean new paths to our survival."

"Change is the immediate responsibility of each of us, wherever and however we are standing, in whatever arena we choose."

"Omnia mortali mutantur lege creata, Nec se cognoscunt terræ vertentibus annis, Et mutant variam faciem per sæcula gentes."

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however,is to change it"

"You can’t hate change. It’s like hating life."

"There are moments that change everything, and once things have been changed, they do not change back."

"Why are they [people] more likely to listen to people who tell them they can't make changes than they are to people who tell them they can?"

"Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!"

"Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky, Dreary the leaf lieth low. All things must come to the earth by and by, Out of which all things grow."

"The past is being ground to pieces by the mill of inexorable, incomprehensible change."

"In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs."

"To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new."

"Nous avons changé tout cela."

"Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general.""

"All that's bright must fade,— The brightest still the fleetest; All that's sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest."

"to change the world, we have to change ourselves-even sometimes out most cherished, block-hard convictions."

"... some people try to get on the cutting edge of change — they are destroying other people, instead of being destroyed themselves."

"Growth is the only evidence of life."

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit."

"Nihil est toto, quod perstet, in orbe. Cuncta fluunt, omnisque vagans formatur imago."

"My merry, merry, merry roundelay Concludes with Cupid's curse, They that do change old love for new, Pray gods, they change for worse!"

"Let us convert this night we are breathing together to a bright morning."

"Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn, And Pan to Moses lends his Pagan horn."

"See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again; All forms that perish other forms supply; (By turns we catch the vital breath and die)."

"Alas! in truth, the man but chang'd his mind, Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined."

"Manners with Fortunes, Humours turn with Climes, Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times."

"Debout, les damnés de la terre Debout, les forçats de la faim La raison tonne en son cratère C'est l'éruption de la fin Du passé faisons table rase Foule esclave, debout, debout Le monde va changer de base Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout"

"Tournoit les truies au foin."

"Be at peace with the things you can't change"

"If you want to change the world, change yourself."

"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

"True change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It is futile for political systems to force human beings to cooperate or construct social bonding structures. People already do that, naturally; it is evident in our evolutionary history."

"Corporis et fortunæ bonorum ut initium finis est. Omnia orta occidunt, et orta senescunt."