Quotes About Change

Elaine slowly transformed from the proverbial ugly duckling into a swan.

The inconceivable had become the usual, the impossible possible, and the possible and the usual unthinkable.

Let us, then, never look back, let us look ever forward; for forward is our sunlight, forward our salvation.

Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked...

If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward.

History teaches us, however, that when the times are ripe for change and the government refuses or is unable to change, either society starts to decay or a revolution begins.

In the end, the "model" that came into existence in the USSR was not socialist but totalitarian. This is a serious matter to be reflected on by all who seriously aspire to progress for the benefit of the human race.

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.

At times of profound, fundamental change in the foundations of social development it is not only senseless but impossible to expect some sort of previously worked out "model" or a clear-cut outline of the transformations that will take place. This does not mean, however, the absence of a definite goal for the reforms, a distinct conception of their content and the main direction of their development.

Perestroika is an urgent necessity arising from the profound processes of development in our socialist society. This society is ripe for change. It has long been yearning for it. Any delay in beginning perestroika could have led to an exacerbated internal situation in the near future, which, to put it bluntly, would have been fraught with serious social, economic, and political crises.

An essential prerequisite for the reforms to which I gave the name of perestroika was glasnost or transparency, which gave people the possibility but also the right to speak the truth. How could reforms be put in train if one did not tell the truth about the actual situation, if people could not hear the truth about the past?

On taking office as General Secretary in 1985 I was immediately faced with an avalanche of problems. It was vital to change our relationship with the West, particularly the United States, and to bring the costly and dangerous arms race to an end. We needed to withdraw from the damaging and costly war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union faced tremendous internal problems. The process of reform required new leadership and courage.

Perhaps I lost as a politician, perhaps my self-confidence played a trick on me because I did not recognize the double threat – from zealots and radicals, and from reactionaries in my immediate surroundings. Nonetheless, perestroika won. A relapse into the past is out of the question.

We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.

I have long ago made a final and irrevocable decision. Nothing and no one, no pressure, cither from the right or from the left, will make me abandon the positions of perestroika and new thinking. I do not intend to change my views or convictions. My choice is a final one.

And over the village slipped the days, passing into the nights; the weeks flowed by, the months crept on, the wind howled, and glassified with an autumnal, translucent, greenish-azure, The Don flowed tranquilly down to the sea.

No matter how bad the lord is, the lout become a lord is ten times worse.

When swept out of its normal channel, life scatters into innumerable streams. It is difficult to foresee which it will take in its treacherous and winding course. Where today it flows in shallows like a rivulet over sandbanks, so shallow that the shoals are visible, tomorrow it will flow richly and fully.

Young man, consider that the train has left, and all you can do is loudly slam the door in farewell.

IT'S THE BREAK FROM ROUTINE THAT'S SO REFRESHING

No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.

The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.

The word change, so dear to our Europe, has been given a new meaning: it no longer means a new stage of coherent development (as it was understood by Vico, Hegel or Marx), but a shift from one side to another, from front to back, from the back to the left, from the left to the front (as understood by designers dreaming up the fashion for the next season).