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Quotations about Change
No Act so glorious, but must fade away...
Old things must yield to New, Common to Strange,
Perpetual Motion, brings perpetual Change.
~James Miller (1706–1744), Harlequin-Horace: Or, The Art of Modern Poetry, 1731
Change there will be, as there has been throughout these... years. For he who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson, 1967
Even evolution evolves. ~Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, 2001, michaelpollan.com
Always trying to find answers that will last forever when nothing does. ~Barry Stevens, Burst Out Laughing, 1985
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves: we must die to one life before we can enter into another! ~Anatole France, Le crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881, translated by Lafcadio Hearn, 1890
In this world of change, naught which comes stays, and naught which goes is lost. ~Madame Swetchine, translated by Harriet W. Preston
Change is rarely abrupt and convulsive. When change is gradual one may assume a steady discouragement and elimination of the imperfectly adapted and a steady advantage of the happy. Life is self-adjusting.
Sometimes you see little changes fluttering their pennons to show you that a great change is on its way. ~Henry Stanley Haskins, "Time and Change," Meditations in Wall Street, 1940
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place. ~Geoffrey Crayon (Washington Irving), "To the Reader," Tales of a Traveller, 1836
Every hour proves to us that change and decay are written upon all things earthly. As surely will the proudest monuments of human labor pass away, as the morning mist from among the hills. If we can look upon the past and behold the ravages of time, or on the present and not feel his powerful influence upon ourselves and the things around us, then indeed will our future be dark and cheerless. ~Charles Lanman, "Musings," 1840
Adapt yourself to change as the willow tree adapts itself to the weather. When the harsh winds of circumstance sweep across the landscape of your life, bow gracefully, bend gently, adapt graciously.
You are wise to study well the ways of the willow. In the face of change, in the throes of adversity, in the midst of conflict and crisis, the willow willingly bends its branches, but refuses to release its roots. ~William Arthur Ward, "The Wisdom of Adapting Yourself"
Every moment the world and we are renewed. ~Rumi, translated by Edward Henry Whinfield
Unwillingly I found myself growing up. ~Anonymous freshman college student, c.1916
The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble. ~Henry Miller
...the present is the living sum-total of the whole past. In change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural: on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot and life in this world. To-day is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope. ~Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
It is a pleasant feeling to be the first to walk on sands which the tide has just left. It is like being the first to visit a new land. It produces a freshness of sensation something akin to that of early morning, or of spring. It is like entering upon a new stage of life, having a new world before us from which to receive, and upon which to make impressions. ~Henry James Slack (1818–1896), The Ministry of the Beautiful, "Conversation II: Footsteps on the Sand," 1850 [Lyulph speaking
Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have trying to change others. ~Arnold H. Glasow (1905–1999)
Keep out of Ruts; a Rut is something which,
If traveled in too much, becomes a Ditch.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Progress," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
I will swear by a thing to‑day, but I will have the courage to denounce it tomorrow, if needs be. The vows of ignorance are not binding upon enlightenment. ~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Life, 1912
The past is the present, and the present the future, to the non-progressive mind. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
There are tragedies in life that change us forever, the person we once were mistakenly listed among the survivors. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Give him time — and he does not need nearly so much time as an animal because his adjustments are mental and not organic — give him time and man will reconcile himself to the most astonishing changes in his conditions. Nevertheless, some time is needed, and at present the conditions of human life are changing so rapidly as to outpace his utmost adaptability. His knowledge and power increase faster than the wisdom of his conduct.
It is strange and wonderful what changes may be wrought by a few fleeting months, on the human frame, and the human heart. ~Elizabeth J. Eames, "An Autumn Reverie," October 1840
People and their rituals. They cling to things so hard sometimes. ~Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain, 2008, garthstein.com
You must constantly rebuild and add to your career, or it will fall to pieces and dwindle away — sacrificing all you have done thus far. ~“A Hundred Thoughts,”
The universe flows in infinite wild streams, related
in rhythms too big and too small for us to know,
since man is just middling, and his comprehension just middling...
Only man tries not to flow, repeats himself over and over in mechanical monotony of conceit and hence is a mess.
~D. H. Lawrence, "The Universe Flows—," Pansies, 1929
...that unrelenting pendulum, the new standard of reference... ~H. G. Wells, "The End Closes in upon Mind," Mind at the End of Its Tether, 1945
Much can happen in a day. One's whole life may be made or marred. After all, isn't that life? We go along for an hour, a day, a year, automatically, mere bundles of habit reacting and acting and acting and reacting in the same way. We bump against a new sensation; a new temptation comes to us in an appealing guise; an old temptation flaunts itself in our face: and away go the habits established by years of inhibitions. We start a new direction, upward, maybe, or down. ~George A. Dorsey, Young Low, 1917
For either or both ways all minds are always,
Morning and noon and night, sleeping and waking,
Summer and winter, always always changing...
~James Henry, "Love," 1855 December 26th
Breaking out
is following your bliss pattern,
quitting the old place,
starting your hero journey,
following your bliss.
You throw off yesterday
as the snake sheds its skin.
~Joseph Campbell
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1963
You never have a friend all figured out. Just when you think you know what makes them tick, they tock. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
O vanishing goal!
Always the climbing on hands and knees;
Always the near and need of the moment
Reining the eye of the ranging mind;
Always the searching of the soul
For a firm ledge on which to abide in peace.
And always the gained ground
Crumbling to dust beneath the feet.
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Dust," Each Day, 1942
I will not carry a thing to its culmination simply because I entered in. I may have said I wanted it, but I will have the courage to say, "I have changed my mind." ~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Life, 1912
I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;
While if our Elders break all reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon, but applause.
~Alexander Pope
We spend our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it. ~John Steinbeck
Few can accept happiness if it means change. We want the life we have now, only happier. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever...
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free;
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability"
Everything that changes, where it changes, leaves behind it an abyss. ~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), c.1968
I think that mentally and biologically, if not in physical form, man has been changing for at least the last two thousand years and that now he is changing very rapidly indeed. This New Adam, Homo rampant... is dawning upon us...
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Kéramos" [the Potter's song
I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead. ~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1958
If we gaze at the clouds, then close our eyes for a few minutes, then
I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like a date on a tombstone. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, 1963
Yes, change is the basic law of nature. But the changes wrought by the passage of time affects individuals and institutions in different ways. According to Darwin's Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment... Applying this theoretical concept to us as individuals, we can state that the civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself. ~Leon C. Megginson, 1963 [quoteinvestigator.com]
Beauty he welcomes his way
And pities suffering and pain,
Knowing well what fills today
Tomorrow will not contain.
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Santayana," Each Day, 1942
We do not knowingly choose unhappiness over happiness. Rather we choose security over risk, stability over change, what seems permanent over what seems fleeting. We choose unhappiness because it has a better chance to be lasting. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2019
Sometimes you just need to be open to the universe's alternate plans for you. ~Terri Guillemets
Changing and actually improving are two quite different skills. ~Dr. SunWolf, tweet, 2015, professorsunwolf.com
I'll tell you what's hard. It's hard to accept a promissory note for a better life when you are holding a paid receipt for the life you're living. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of the mercury in the barometer, indicate nothing but the changeableness of the weather. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
We may as well make
friends with Change —
the instant the Moon is full
it's already starting to wane
~Terri Guillemets
The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me. ~Bernard Shaw
It's hard to change, even though, I know, I know. You have to change. ~Catherine Newman, Sandwich, 2024, catherinenewmanwriter.com
World changes, eh...? Even if we don't. ~T2 Trainspotting, 2017, written by John Hodge, based on the books Porno and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
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