Quotes About Change

Made me wonder whether putting names to time made much of a difference anyway. What did it measure? Not how much life passes. Hell no. Your whole life can pass and be changed in a second or in a century. Don't matter.

Nearly all libertarians were once conservatives or progressives or independent statists of some stripe. But scarcely any conservatives, progressives, or independent statists were once libertarians. This asymmetry in the direction of ideological migration is interesting and perhaps informative.

One new perception, one fresh thought, one act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever.

While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any emotion so utterly at the mercy of time. We form friendships, and grow out of them. It might almost be said that we cannot retain the faculty of friendship unless we are continually making new friends.

When a man falls in love suddenly his whole centre changes. Up to that point he has probably referred everything to himself--considered things from his own point. When he falls in love the whole thing is shifted; he becomes a part of the circumference--perhaps even the whole circumference; someone else becomes the centre.

Friendliness took the place of charity, contentment the place of hope, and knowledge the place of faith.

six millions of souls who lived here for love of religion. It was these who had despaired of modern life, tired out with change and effort, who had fled from the new system for refuge to the Church,

Nothing dates faster than people's fantasies about the future.

As the eighteenth century went on, fewer people were actually hanged for capital crimes that they had been convicted of.

What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?

In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art, radically and forever. It brought our culture into the age of mass-produced, industrialized death. This, at first, was indescribable.

Keep an eye to the future, and ear to the past, and after thinking it over notice nothing much lasts.

The policy of repression of ideas cannot work and never has worked.

weird ideas spark innovation because each helps companies do at least one of three things: (1) increase variance in available knowledge, (2) see old things in new ways, and (3) break from the past. These are the three basic organizing principles for innovative work

Wise people "have the courage to act on their beliefs and convictions at the same time that they have the humility to realize that they might be wrong, and must be prepared to change their beliefs and actions when better information comes along.

managers continue to use methods that force people to see old things in old ways, expecting new and profitable ideas somehow to magically appear.

Hire newcomers that other people in your company will dislike." David

The lesson from the Big Mac story is that innovations that ought to be scaled won't happen everywhere but can happen anywhere.

But if you want to make a place safe for people to take on culprits, and admit their own bad behaviors too, it's crucial to treat alleged jerks with dignity and respect. That means starting with calm and backstage conversations with them and giving them chances to change. It also means realizing that some people aren't usually jerks, but there is something about the characters they work with, their customers

That "telling them where they stand, while giving them the chance to try a new environment, is often enough to get them to change their behavior.

Trust yourself and speak out what you believe. If what you believe is different, dare to be different. Dare to be in a hurry to change things for the better.2 —Geoffrey

As I wrote on the Harvard Business Review website in 2010, that's what wisdom means to organizational psychologist (and my intellectual hero) Karl Weick. Wise people "have the courage to act on their beliefs and convictions at the same time that they have the humility to realize that they might be wrong, and must be prepared to change their beliefs and actions when better information comes along.

variance in people, knowledge, activities, and organizational structures is crucial to creativity and innovation.

In our era, just as in every transitional age, God seems dead, but it is really our Enlightenment culture that has died.