Quotes About Change

When people choose between talk about the past and talk about the future, a pragmatic person will always opt for the future and forget the past.

So often we think that power has changed people, when in fact it simply reveals more of who they are.

The leader who tries to change the group's spirit directly—yelling, demanding, disciplining—actually plays into the teenage dynamic and reinforces the desire to rebel.

The world is ruled by necessity: People change their behavior only if they have to. They will feel urgency only if their lives depend on it.

Since you are on your own, it is up to you to foresee the changes going on right now in your profession. You must adapt your Life's Task to these circumstances. You do not hold on to past ways of doing things, because that will ensure you will fall behind and suffer for it. You are flexible and always looking to adapt. If change is forced upon you, you must resist the temptation to overreact or feel sorry for yourself.

Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt.

The men who have changed the universe have never gotten there by working on leaders, but rather by moving the masses. Working on leaders is the method of intrigue and only leads to secondary results. Working on the masses, however, is the stroke of genius that changes the face of the world. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821

You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressure.

Those misfortunates among us who have been brought down by circumstances beyond their control deserve all the help and sympathy we can give them. But there are others who are not born to misfortune or unhappiness, but who draw it upon themselves by their destructive actions and unsettling effect on others. It would be a great thing if we could raise them up, change their patterns, but more often than not it is their patterns that end up getting inside and changing us.

Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay.

Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters decay

In dealing with your career and its inevitable changes, you must think in the following way: You are not tied to a particular position; your loyalty is not to a career or a company. You are committed to your Life's Task, to giving it full expression.

You do not hold on to past ways of doing things, because that will ensure you will fall behind and suffer for it. You are flexible and always looking to adapt.

like a turtle, the Spartans sacrificed mobility for safety. They managed to preserve stability for three hundred years, but at what cost? They had no culture beyond warfare, ... While their neighbors took to the sea, learning to adapt to a world of constant motion, the Spartans entombed themselves in their own system.... Only stasis allowed them to survive. But nothing in the world can remain stable forever, and the shell or system you evolve for your protection will someday prove your undoing.

Like Roach, you don't want to abandon the skills and experience you have gained, but to find a new way to apply them.

Daily Law: Adapt your inclinations. Avoid having rigid goals and dreams. Change is the law. Mastery, I: Discover Your Calling—The Life's Task

People do not advertise their rigidity. You will only trip up against it if you try to introduce a new idea or procedure. Some in the group—the hyper-rigid—will become irritable, even panicky at the thought of any kind of change. If you press your case with logic and reason, you will tend to make them even more defensive and resistant.

1658) REVERSAL

Progress and technology have not rewired us; they have merely altered the forms of our emotions and the type of irrationality that comes with them.

Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today. You must cut yourself loose from the past and open your eyes to the present. Your tendency to fight the last war may lead to your final war.

The greatest discovery of my generation is the fact that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. —William James

The Laws of Human Nature, 17: Seize the Historical Moment—The Law of Generational Myopia

The human mind naturally freezes the relentless passage of time by presenting us with static images of people, our culture, and our own self-identity. But if we were truly sensitive to evolution, we would realize these are only passing shadows in a world of ceaseless flux.

Every minute of every day we are aging; every encounter with others alters and shapes our ideas; we are a continuous work in progress, never quite the same. As Heraclitus once said, "You cannot step into the same river twice; it is not the same river, and you are not the same person.