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Quotes About Change

Races improve the race, and all these games lead fortunately to the death of the best, allowing mankind to continue its existence serenely with normal protagonists, of average achievement.
~ Umberto Eco
In the past men were handsome and great (now they are children and dwarfs), but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world.
~ Umberto Eco
Joinville's perspective shifts vertically, depending on whether he has fallen from his horse or just remounted.
~ Umberto Eco
es verdad, la cultura medieval tiene el sentido de la innovación, pero se las ingenia para esconderlo bajo el disfraz de la repetición (al contrario de la cultura moderna, que finge innovar incluso cuando repite).
~ Umberto Eco
Who among us is living in the past? You, who would bestow the horrors of the toiling industrial age upon this country, or I, who wish that our poor Europe might recover the naturalness and faith of these children of slaves?
~ Umberto Eco
El francés no sabe bien qué quiere, lo único que sabe a la perfección es que no quiere lo que tiene. Y para decirlo no sabe sino cantar canciones.
~ Umberto Eco
Characters migrate
~ Umberto Eco
History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn't exist. It's the permutations that matter.
~ Umberto Eco
calcination
~ Umberto Eco
I could write the political history of those years based on how Red Label gradually gave way to twelve-year-old Ballantine and then to single malt.
~ Umberto Eco
I shall not indulge in descriptions of persons because, as Boethius says, nothing is more fleeting than the external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn; and what would be the point of saying today that the abbot Abo had a stern eye and pale cheeks, when by now he and those around him are dust and their bodies have the mortal grayness of dust?
~ Umberto Eco
Life changed you, and the people you thought you could not stand suddenly made sense to you.
~ Una McCormack
A simple, magnificent equation: ingenuity plus hope equals change
~ Una McCormack
He had been a reform member of the city council, he had been a Greenbacker, a Labor Unionist, a Populist, a Bryanite—and after thirty years of fighting, the year 1896 had served to convince him that the power of concentrated wealth could never be controlled, but could only be destroyed. He had published a pamphlet about it, and set out to organize a party of his own, when a stray Socialist leaflet had revealed to him that others had been ahead of him. Now
~ Upton Sinclair
Play your music, read your books, think your own thoughts, and never let yourselves be drawn into an argument! Not an altogether satisfactory way of life, but the only one possible in times when the world is changing so fast that parents and children may be a thousand years apart in their ideas and ideals.
~ Upton Sinclair
In a pluto-democracy, politics is the art of outwitting the voters, so the Honorable Ham would never say that he hated the labor unions and proposed to keep them down. What he said was that the Reds were plotting to seize America. Some fifteen years ago he had got himself appointed chairman of a committee to investigate the Communists. His definition of this word was rather vague, and included everybody who proposed any sort of change calculated to reduce the gulf between the rich and the poor.
~ Upton Sinclair
if we don't break down England's caste system, we'll find this war was hardly worth fighting." Lanny agreed with all that; but he wanted to shake his head sadly when the flyer went on to say: "There will be a different England after this war. Our people will never be content with the old life, after the sacrifices they have made." Lanny had heard exactly the same words from Alfy's father during World War I, before this youngster had been born.
~ Upton Sinclair
For eight years he had been a satellite of F.D.R., revolving about him; now suddenly there was no F.D.R., and Lanny was an asteroid or something, wandering alone through space.
~ Upton Sinclair
British foreign policy, on the other hand, changed very slowly; in fundamentals it never changed at all. Britain had a Prime Minister who was a Socialist, yet everything remained as it had been. Politicians may come and politicians may go but the old school tie goes on forever.
~ Upton Sinclair
Of course it was wrong that some should be born to privilege while others did not have enough to eat. Of course it was right that the disinherited should protest and try to change the ancient evils of the world. Who would not demand food when he was starving? Who would not fight for liberty when he was oppressed? Who could fail to hate cruelty and injustice, and cry out for it to be ended?
~ Upton Sinclair
In the long run, every statesman's acts today are dominated by the dread of social revolution in his own country and those of his neighbors.
~ Upton Sinclair
The change will come fast in this country. Both the CIO and the AFL are setting up co-ops for their members, and you can be sure they aren't going to be non-political. In my old country one in five of the population is a co-op member, and it would never cross the mind of anybody that the co-ops and the Social-Democratic party were anything but the same movement, one in the economic and the other in the political sphere.
~ Upton Sinclair
Not an altogether satisfactory way of life, but the only one possible in times when the world is changing so fast that parents and children may be a thousand years apart in their ideas and ideals.
~ Upton Sinclair
You recall what I told you the first time you came to me. I couldn't go any faster than the people would let me. I had to wait, and let events change their minds.
~ Upton Sinclair