Quotes About Change

Los ricos siempre se encariñan, cuando son ricos, por el lugar donde antes han sido pobres. Parece ser esta la mejor manera de demostrar su cambio de posición y fortuna y el más viable procedimiento para sentirse felices al ver que otros que eran pobres siguen siendo pobres a pesar del tiempo.

Le dolía que los hechos pasasen con esta facilidad a ser recuerdos; notar la sensación de que nada, nada de lo pasado, podría reproducirse. Era aquella una sensación angustiosa de dependencia, le ponía nervioso la imposibilidad de dar marcha atrás en el reloj del tiempo.

Todas as éticas são evolutivas: o que hoje é normal, amanhã será horrendo e o que hoje é crime, amanhã será banal.

It's almost always sadder to stay than to depart

Nada é eterno nem adquirido, tudo é fugaz e passageiro. A ilusão - seja a de felicidade ou a de tristeza - é acreditar num horizonte fechado, ao alcance da vista, que ignora ou finge ignorar os horizontes sucessivos que estão para além do imediato.

Não há regresso. Há viagens sem regresso nem repetição.

We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.

But no social change can come about until the consciousness of individuals is changed first. When a young man asked Carlyle how he should go about reforming the world, Carlyle answered, "Reform yourself. That way there will be one less rascal in the world." The advice is still valid. Those who try to make life better for everyone without having learned to control their own lives first usually end up making things worse all around.

As J. S. Mill wrote, "No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

But the point is still valid: human relations are malleable, and if a person has the appropriate skills their rules can be transformed. But

a constant alternation between a highly concentrated critical assessment and a relaxed, receptive, nonjudgmental openness to experience. His attention coils and uncoils, its focus sharpens and softens, like the systolic and diastolic beat of the heart. It is out of this dynamic change of perspective that a good new work arises.

Oppression is often made possible by a new technological advance—sometimes as dramatic as the introduction of farming, sometimes as apparently trivial as the stirrup.

The price one pays for changing goals whenever opposition threatens is that while one may achieve a more pleasant and comfortable life, it is likely that it will end up empty and void of meaning.

It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively.

Unfortunately, too many adults feel that once they have hit twenty or thirty—or certainly forty—they are entitled to relax in whatever habitual grooves they have established.

ningún cambio social puede suceder mientras no cambie primero la conciencia de los individuos. Cuando

Jefferson's uncomfortable dictum "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" applies outside the fields of politics as well; it means that we must constantly reevaluate what we do, lest habits and past wisdom blind us to new possibilities.

THERE ARE TWO main strategies we can adopt to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better.

The price one pays for changing goals whenever opposition threatens is that while one may achieve a more pleasant and comfortable life, it is likely that it will end up empty and void of meaning. The

Almost every situation we encounter in life presents possibilities for growth.

means that we must constantly reevaluate what we do, lest habits and past wisdom blind us to new possibilities.

Of the many causes that shaped St. Francis's actions, a primary one was the belief that his actions mattered, and that he had a responsibility to change the world around him. This belief, in itself, is a "cause." The idea of free will is a self-fulfilling prophecy; those who abide by it are liberated from the absolute determinism of external forces. Chance

In order to survive, cultures must eliminate most of the new ideas their members produce. Cultures are conservative, and for good reason. No culture could assimilate all the novelty people produce without dissolving into chaos.

Work as we know it now is a very recent historical development. It didn't exist before the great agricultural revolutions that made intensive farming possible about twelve thousand years ago.