Quotes About Change

The interest we have in problems is so intense that at some point we take our identity from those problems. Without them, it seems like we would not know who we are as a community. Many of the strongest advocates for change would lose their sense of identity if the change they desired ever occurred.

We decide to move far enough to the edge of the culture to see it clearly. What is the norm and normal does not serve us well. Many of us have tried hard to live a "normal" life, and how is it going?

Understand that the task is to shift the demand for the right answer to the search for the right question.

Questions that are designed to change other people are the wrong questions. Wrong, not because they don't matter or are based on ill intent, but because they reinforce the problem-solving model. They are questions that are the cause of the very thing we are trying to shift: the fragmented and retributive nature of our communities.

We want desperately to take uncertainty out of the future. But when we take uncertainty out, it is no longer the future. It is the present projected forward. Nothing new can come from the desire for a predictable tomorrow. The only way to make tomorrow predictable is to make it just like today. In fact, what distinguishes the future is its unpredictability and mystery.

Individual transformation is the more popular conversation, and the choice not to focus on it [in this book] is because we have already learned that the transformation of large numbers of individuals does not result in the transformation of communities. If we continue to invest in individuals as the primary target of change, we will spend our primary energy on this and never fully invest in communities. In this way, individual transformation comes at the cost of community.

Acting on what matters means that we will consistently find ourselves feeling like we are living on the margin of our institutions and our culture. This calls for some detachment from the mainstream.

change. Each of us has a free will at our core, so like it or not, others will choose to change more readily from the example set by our own transformation than by any demand we make of them.

If there is no transformation inside of us, all the structural change in the world will have impact on our institutions.

Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.

I am ready to disclaim my opinion, even of yesterday, even of 10 minutes ago, because all opinions are relative. One lives in a field of influences, one is influenced by everyone one meets, everything is an exchange of influences, all opinions are derivative. Once you deal a new deck of cards, you've got a new deck of cards.

The life of a play begins and ends in the moment of performance. This is where author, actors and directors express all they have to say. If the event has a future, this can only lie in the memories of those who were present and who retained a trace in their hearts. This is the only place for our Dream. No form nor interpretation is for ever. A form has to become fixed for a short time, then it has to go. As the world changes, there will and must be new and totally unpredictable Dreams.

If you find yourself falling into single-minded, repetitive practice of a particular topic or skill, change it up: mix in the practice of other subjects, other skills, constantly challenging your ability to recognize the problem type and select the right solution.

Even if it's absurd to think you can change things, it's even more absurd to believe that it is foolish and unimportant to try.

It was strange to see someone you have only known alone begin interacting with other people, for that somebody known to you disappears and is replaced by a different, more complex, person. You watch him revolve in this new company, revealing new facets, and there is nothing you can do but hope you like these other sides as much as you like the side that seemed whole when it faced only you.

A volte mi sembra che la terra non voglia che le cose durino, ma voglia che tutto crolli e che noi tutti che ne andiamo via. Che voglia tornare al principio, al giardino con i frutti e gli animali, prima che Dio diventasse ambizioso e rovinasse tutto. Avrebbe dovuto riposare al sesto giorno, non al settimo.

Roman citizenship became universal when it was no longer a privilege but a burden

While funerals are among the saddest events that we humans can participate in, at least they are definitive moments marking change: from living to dead. But perhaps even sadder is the life near its end, such as a human with a fatal malady given a highly definitive death sentence.

Unfortunately, the world does not always act in a manner consistent with one's plans for it.

My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too.

The discovery of a new interest as the years roll on is one of life's good surprises.

Whether we like the idea or not, humanity has the job of managing the planet, a process that can be in direct conflict with long-held beliefs and well-established practices, on the other hand, and with the urban romanticisation and anthropomorphization of animals (the Bambi syndrome), on the other. We need to change how we do things, but in ways that are driven as much by a respect for science and the realities of nature as by emotion.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

Don't try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present!