Great Throughts Treasury

"Social evolution is a resultant of the interaction of two wholly distinct factors: the individual… bearing all the power of initiative and origination in his hands; and, second, the social environment, with its power of adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are essential to change. The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." - William James

"The greatest discover of my lifetime was that a person can change the circumstances of his life by changing his thoughts and attitudes." - William James

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson

"We can flow along with the mainstream of a culture that does not serve us well – does not really make us comfortable, does not really make us safe; but only offers illusions of happiness, comfort, safety – or we can begin the oftentimes prickly work of searching our own hearts, of asking who and what we love, who and what we feel strongly enough about to change our lives for, to fight for, to live for." - Derrick Jensen

"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." - Julian of Norwich NULL

"As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"If there is anything we wish to change in our children, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"Kegley’s Principle of Change: It is easier to behave your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of behaving." - Charles W Kegley, Jr.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

"The forces of change facing the world could be so far-reaching, complex, and interactive that they call for nothing less than the reeducation of humankind." - Paul Kennedy, fully Paul Michael Kennedy

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." -

"Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Change begins by not trying to change. What you imagine you must do in order to change yourself is often the very force that keeps you precisely the way you are… Beneath all the layers of wanting to be different, self-dissatisfaction, pretense, charade, and denial is a self. This self is a living, dynamic force within everyone. And if you could remain still long enough here, now, in this very place, you would discover who you are. And by discovering who you are, you would be at last free to discover who you yet also might be." - Lawrence Kushner

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing." -

"Authentic religion has always enabled man to see that the power by which he can endure the world requires him to change the world." - Paul L. Lehman

"Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world." -

"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"Government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you; and this is done by depriving them of all means of injuring you, or by bestowing such benefits upon them that it would not be reasonable for them to desire any change of fortune." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change." -

"When a man offers you his soul, do you give him change?" - Luis Muñoz Marín

"Companies that don’t risk anything will inevitably find themselves falling behind those that do. You can lead change or it can lead you." - J.W. Marriott, Jr., fully John Willard "Bill" Marriott, Jr.

"Policies are many, principles are few. Policies will change, principles never do." - John C. Maxwell

"The body is mortal but the changeless Spirit within is immortal. It pervades the universe and is indestructible. No one has the power to change the changeless." - Bibhuti Mazumder

"The quality of a person’s life is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility he takes for his own life and the commitment he makes to change for the better. Don’t be afraid of pains and sufferings. They are divine gifts for our growth." - Bibhuti Mazumder

"Politics, as hopeful men practice it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance." -

"Storytelling can be a powerful agent of personal transformation. The right stories can open our hearts and change who we are." - Janet H. Murray

"The accumulated research pertaining to the accuracy of our memories and beliefs can be summarized as follows: All memories and beliefs are subject to change and distortion. Conscious beliefs and memory recall are highly dependent on language, emotion, and social interaction; as these variables change, so do our memories and beliefs. Children’s memories and beliefs distinguish poorly between fantasies and facts. The older a memory, the more difficult it is to ascertain accuracy." - Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." - Paul Boese

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." - Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch

"God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves." -

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." - Gilda Radner, fully Gilda Susan Radner

"The Church must either condemn the world and seek to change it, or tolerate it and conform to it. In the latter case it surrenders its holiness and its mission." - Walter Rauschenbusch

"Life’s picture is constantly undergoing change. The spirit beholds a new world every moment." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"If choice is real, if there really are alternatives, it follows that in choosing between them we are exhibiting our power as real agents, real causes and initiators of new departures in the flow of cosmic change, we thereby prove the existence of free causes." - Jonathan Schell, fully Jonathan Edward Schell

"The existentialist insight, in part, is that meaning is something we give to life. We do not find meaning so much as throw ourselves at it. The Zen insight, in part, is that worrying about meaning may itself make life less meaningful than it might have been. Part of the virtue of the Zen attitude lies in learning to not need to be busy: learning there is joy and meaning and peace in simply being mindful, not needing to change or be changed. Let the moment mean what it will." - David Schmidtz

"Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these all things are subject but to eternal love." -

"If we don’t change the direction in which we are going, we will end up where we are headed." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton

"Patterns and structure. Everywhere we look we see them. What appears random and chaotic also has order. And on Earth much of the order is linked to interrelationships that drive constant change. Cycles and rhythms. Pulses and flows. Changes in magnetic fields. Continental plates moving. Water cycles. Seasons changing. Life and death. Process and connection. Nature flows through webs of structure and shifting time: from ocean to cloud to rain to river to ocean. Natural rhythms." - Payson R. Stevens

"Man seems to be a problem-seeking as well as problem-solving animal. We are programmed to change, develop, and meet new challenges until we die." - Anthony Storr

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will hold onto. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools chances are that you'll cut your hands." -

"The Universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it you will lose it." -

"All change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves." - Alfred Edward Taylor

"A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of themselves and the world around them." -

"Awareness is the greatest agent for change." - Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle

"Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle." - Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle

"The improvement of life was only accomplished to the extent to which it was based on a change of consciousness, that is, to the extent to which the law of violence was replaced in men’s consciousness, that is to the extent to which the law of violence was replaced in men’s consciousness by the law of love." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

"Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." - United Nations NULL

"It is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change… Compassion is a sign of transformation." -

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjust the sails." -

"The President must have not only the courage of his convictions but also the courage to change his convictions." - Sidney Warren