This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"In all things except those that are simply bad, change is to be feared: change of seasons, winds, food, and humors. And no laws are held in their true honor except those to which God has given some ancient duration, so that no one knows their origin or that they were ever different." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"What really is? That which is eternal: that is to say, what never had birth, nor will ever have an end; to which time never brings any change. For time is a mobile thing, which appears as in a shadow, together with matter, which is ever running and flowing, without ever remaining stable or permanent... Wherefore we must conclude that God is - not at all according to any measure of time, but according to an eternity immutable and immobile, not measured by time or subject to any decline." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Time is change - on all sorts of different scales; and the phenomenal world is made up of this continual changing, at different rates, of everything, like an enormous clock full of wheels. Outside, there is this stream of becoming; and within, a stream of ever-changing thoughts and feelings, a succession of different I’s, of fragmentary bits of ourselves - an inner world of becoming in which nothing is, in which we possess nothing and do not possess ourselves. We think of all this changing in time as progress; and not only do we have this extraordinary and absurd illusion, but we imagine that the stability that we all secretly crave can be sought for in all this machinery of change, in the turning wheels of this enormous clock. But we know that what is stable was always beyond time... The real distinction, therefore, between time and eternity is qualitative and so must lie in the realm of psychological experience." - Maurice Nicoll
"We find the attribute of unchangingness always associated with the highest level of conscious experience. The experiences of truth are always similar. There is the changing mind, following time and change; and the unchanging mind behind it. There is the order of natural reasoning that goes with changing phenomena, and another above... The source of all truth lies in ‘unchangeable truth’ which is above the level of reason, and it is the internal perception of this unchangeable truth that endows man with the highest grade of being." - Maurice Nicoll
"We need to get rid of some false meanings that we give to the words eternal and eternity. The psychological idea connected with eternal life cannot be limited to the view that man is changed into another state at death, merely by the act of dying. It would be far more correct to say that it refers, first of all, to some change that man is capable of undergoing now, in this life, and one that is connected with the attainment of unity. The modern term psychology means literally the science of the soul. But in former times there actually existed a science of the soul based upon the idea that man is an imperfect state but capable of reaching a further state... No totality-act is possible; the will is separate from knowledge, the feeling from intellect." - Maurice Nicoll
"Love is more afraid of change than destruction." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"To change his opinions is for one nature an expression of purity of mind, like somebody who changes his clothing; but for another nature it is only an expression of his vanity." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"I seek the Presidency not because it offers me a change to be somebody but because it offers a chance to do something." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"The Cosmos has had no beginning... and this is warrant for its continued existence. Why should there be in the future a change that has not yet occurred? The elements there are not worn away like beams and rafters: they hold sound for ever, and so the All holds sound. And even supposing these elements to be in ceaseless transmutation, yet the All persists: the ground of all the change must itself be changeless." - Plotinus NULL
"Words are the small change of thought." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
"The current cultural split lies not between scientists and everyone else but between those who innovate or create and those who do not. Innovators and the process of innovation must become the focus of study. Innovation is the lifeblood of cultural change." - Robert Root-Bernstein
"What you keep by you, you may change and mend; but words, once spoken, can never be recalled." - Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon
"Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things." - Sam Shoemaker, fully Samuel "Sam" Moor Shoemaker, III
"When you remember your dreams, you remember your Self, your hidden wounds, fears, desires and joys... When you explore you dreams, you begin to make yourself whole: you take back the powerful feelings of grief, rage, and love that you've denied or avoided. When you share your dreams, you are sharing deeply personal feelings that create bonds of intimacy and help you receive the love and support needed to heal and grow at times of change." - Alan B. Siegel
"A species does not live within its environment; it interacts with it. Over a period of time a species can interact so violently that the changes it catalyzes can cause it to change dramatically--even to die out. Scientists estimate that 90% of the life forms that have inhabited our planet are now extinct. From the earliest single-cell life form to the human animal, all have interacted with the environment. All have created problems for themselves. All have been agents of evolutionary change. All have experienced evolution through cataclysm." - Richard Smolowe, fully Richard Edward Smolowe
"If the body is only the vehicle by which the soul can access the experience of physical living, then there is no real physical me. The soul (or life force) is the only real me. If you and I (the souls) want to achieve the most from this earthly lifetime, the more varied the experiences we should seek. That said, it’s too easy for you and me to fall into a comfort zone and try to avoid change. To keep this from happening, the experiences change rapidly as a result of the body moving from infancy though old age. The physical changes help to enhance our learning curve, our ability to serve, and our chance to evolve." - Richard Smolowe, fully Richard Edward Smolowe
"We believe in a life continuum, and eternal life. Each incarnation or lifetime on earth is 'just a day in the classroom'... We believe the plane of greatest learning is the physical plane. It is up to all of us to make the most of each carnation. We believe that all there is in the universe is energy... and all energy forms, from subatomic particles to stars, are in a constant state of change and transformation... that interpreting energy frequencies on sensory bands creates the reality in which each life-form lives." - Richard and Greta Smolowe
"All men have poetry in their hearts, and it is necessary for them, as much as possible, to express their feelings. For this they must have a medium, moving and pliant, which can refreshingly become their own, age after age. All great languages undergo change. Those languages which resist the spirit of change are doomed and will never produce great harvests of thought and literature. When forms become fixed, the spirit either weakly accepts its imprisonment or rebels. All revolutions consists of the “within” fighting against invasion from “without”... All great human movements are related to some great idea." -
"All things human change." - Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Commonly called Alfred Lord Tennyson
"What is freedom if not the possibility of change?" - Abraham J. Twerski, fully Abraham Joshua Twerski
"In short, human society is a product of evolution. It is created by natural selection and environmental pressures which bring individuals together in a special and powerful way, but it requires no physical change or mutation. It is a composition of ideas and beliefs - a new and essentially psychic phenomenon. A kind of supermind." - Lyall Watson
"The only man who can change his mind is the man who's got one." - Edward Noyes Westcott
"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things and happy in small ways." - Edith Wharton
"If our religion is not true, we are bound to change it; if it is true, we are bound to change it; if it is true, we are bound to propagate it" - Richard Whately
"The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for Nature to follow. Now we just set the clock an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase." - E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White
"You had better be ready to change your mind when needed or your mind will change you. The way a man's mind runs is the way he is sure to go." - Henry B. Wilson, fully Henry Blauvelt Wilson
"You, not karma, are in command of your present life. If you don't like it, change it." - Greta Woodrew, Pseud. for Greta Andron Smolowe
"There are no permanent changes because change itself is permanent. It behooves the industrialist to research and the investor to be vigilant." - Ralph L. Woods
"It takes vision and courage to create - it takes faith and courage to prove." - Owen D. Young
"Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict." - Saul Alinsky, fully Saul David Alinsky
"The greatest lever for change is awareness." - Michael E. Angier
"The most powerful agent of change is a change of heart." - Gil Atkinson
"Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free — he has set himself free — for higher dreams, for greater privileges. " - James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
"People in our culture have a morbid tendency to avoid blame, because they do not wish to take the trouble to change their conduct in any way: blame-avoidance and blame-transference are therefore endemic amongst us. These are substitutes for repentance and renewal." - Behavior Research Project NULL
"Peace is more than simply the absence of aggression and war. Peace transcends the end of a conflict or a statement of policy. While we may force the outward appearance of peace upon a people or a nation, it is the underlying thinking that must change to create a true and lasting peace." - Gregg Braden
"To change the conditions that allow war, oppression, and mass suffering, we must change the thinking that has allowed the conditions to be present.”" - Gregg Braden
"What was new never came to stay, but to skim the gates of change." - Kwesi Brew, fully Osborne Henry Kwesi Brew
"Change occurs when something new starts or something old stops, and it takes place at a particular point in time. But transition cannot be localized in time that way, since it is the gradual . . . process through which individuals and groups reorient themselves. Change often starts with a new beginning, but transition must start with an ending--with people letting go of old attitudes and behaviors." - William Bridges, fully Sir William Throsby Bridges
"In any society, the artist has a responsibility. Their effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is very important." - Luis Buñuel, fully Luis Buñuel Portolés
"Risk taking only makes sense when you have a core set of values that do not change." - Tom Butler-Bowdon