Change

"The times they are a-changin'"

"Change happens because of individuals who team up with others or inspire others. And soon you’ve got 10 or 100 or 1,000, and then you’ve got a movement."

"Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos."

"Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring."

"We are at a very exciting moment in history, perhaps a turning point, said Ilya Prigogine, who won the 1977 Nobel prize for a theory that describes transformations, not only in the physical sciences but also in society—the role of stress and "perturbations" that can thrust us into a new, higher order. Science, he said, is proving the reality of a deep cultural vision. The poets and philosophers were right in their intimations of an open, creative universe. Transformation, innovation, evolution—these are the natural responses to crisis. The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand nature's transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a force to be feared or subdued. Our pathology is our opportunity."

"In every age, said scientist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, man has proclaimed himself at a turning point in history. " A n d to a certain extent, as he is advancing on a rising spiral, he has not been wrong. But there are moments when this impression of transformation becomes accentuated and is thus particularly justified." Teilhard prophesied the phenomenon central to this book: a conspiracy of men and women whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change. Throughout history virtually all efforts to remake society began by altering its outward form and organization."

"Nothing can remain static. Things are either moving forward or moving backward."

"Tous les changements, même les plus souhaités ont leur mélancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-mêmes; il faut mourir à une vie pour entrer dans une autre."

"Although we accept the inevitability of change, humans meet it with a lot of resistance. In most cases, change threatens those in positions of advantage and for the most part they are there in the first place to keep things the way they are. ...Yet at every turn, vested interests (those who have the most to gain in keeping things the way they are) oppose even technological changes... And so it goes.... Until scientific inquiry came of age, human beings could not comprehend their relationship to the physical world, so they invented their own explanations. These explanations tended to be simplistic and in many cases, harmful. For example, if one knows a tidal wave is approaching and chooses to stay and pray for deliverance rather than leaving, this could be detrimental to his/her survival... Scientists ask the question “what do we have here?” and then they proceed to do experiments to determine the nature of the physical world... Better values, ideals, and behavior cannot be fully realized while there is still hunger, unemployment, deprivation, war, and poverty."

"It takes 11 guys to change the world. It takes five to change a university."

"Great change begins with small steps taken at home."

"Social change does not spring forth from the minds of generals or presidents-in fact, change is often blocked by the powerful. Change starts with ordinary people working in their communities. And that's where media should start as well."

"The times change, and we change with them."

":Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis"

":Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis"

":Illa vices quasdam res habet, illa vices."

": All things are changed, and we change with them"

": that matter has some changements, it (does have) changements (colloquially, that matter changes is demonstrated by the changes in matter)"

"Greek philosophy returned for some time to the concept of the One in the teachings of Parmenides... His most important contribution... was, perhaps, that he introduced a purely logical argument into metaphysics. "One cannot know what is not—that is impossible—nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be." Therefore, only the One is, and there is no becoming or passing away. Parmenides denied the existence of empty space for logical reasons. Since all change requires empty space... he dismissed change as an illusion."

"Nothing endures but change."

"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you."

"Change is a difficult, often violent process, both for individuals and for whole species. The more rapidly change, the uglier the conflict."

"Change has been promised before."

"Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin."

"Nor can one word be chang'd but for a worse."

"Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better."

"Non si male nunc et olim Sic erit."

"Plerumque gratæ divitibus vices."

"Non sum qualis eram."

"Amphora cœpit Institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?"

"Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?"

"Quod petiit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit."

"Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis."

"Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus."

"Deus hæc fortasse benigna Reducet in sedem vice."

"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."

"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."

"So many great nobles, things, administrations, So many high chieftains, so many brave nations. So many proud princes, and power so splendid, In a moment, a twinkling, all utterly ended."

"As the rolling stone gathers no moss, so the roving heart gathers no affections."

"Some people react to fear by seeking security, change, control. The rest accept the change and just go on about their lives."

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?"

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

"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."

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

": The more things change, the more they stay the same."

"We forget that people can change, including our own people; including ourselves."

"As activists we need to believe in vision and imagination; communicate a sense of possibility. Bleakness is not the whole story, and escape is not the only alternative. Change is possible...history is shaped by people operating as people do, making choices with their consciousness limited by material reality and by their perceptions of material reality. This means by their perceptions of possibility too. Simply put, if people don't think change is possible, they won't try."

"To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident. I observe regretfully that in politics, however, it can be heresy. It can be denounced as radicalism, or branded as subversion. There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. It hardly seems necessary to point out in California - of all States -- that change, although it involves risks, is the law of life."

"Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey. On the contrary, great change dominates the world, and unless we move with change we will become its victims."

"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."