Great Throughts Treasury

"Social change rarely comes through the efforts of the disenfranchised. The middle class creates social revolutions." - Faye Wattleton

"It is one of the paradoxes of the human race and possibly its last paradox, that the people who control the fortunes of our community should at the same time be wildly radical in matters that concern our own change of our environment, and rigidly conservative in the social matters that determine our adaptation to it." -

"Scientific evidence is accretionary, built from blocks of evidence joined artfully by the blueprints and mortar of theory. Only very rarely, as in the theories of natural selection and relativity, does an idea change our conception of the world in one quantal leap." -

"The message from geneticists to intellectuals and policy-makers is this: Choose the society you want to promote, then prepare to live with its heritabilities. Never favor the reverse, of promoting social policies just to change heritabilities. For best results, cultivate individuals, not groups." -

"Religious liberty includes freedom to change one’ religion or belief without consequent social, economic and political disabilities. Implicit in this right is the right freely to maintain one’s belief or disbelief without external coercion or disability." - World Council of Churches NULL

"All appears to change when we change." -

"Each day you have the opportunity to change yourself. What have you done today?" - Fred D. Anderson

"Replacing religious institutions that are thousands of years old and hostile to reason with a reason-based belief system would transform society in a positive way more than any mere political change or economic-policy change ever could." - David B Anthony

"We don't need a self-help guru to remind us we all have the power to change our lives. Would you like to lose weight or tone your body? Want to be kinder, gentler? How about becoming more intellectual, or more creative? No one can stop us from reaching these goals but ourselves. We set our own limits." - Judith Barad

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world." - Joel A. Barker

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." - Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

"A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative." - David Bohm, fully David Joseph Bohm

"And it’s a good reason to forgive. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." - Paul Boose

"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." - Carol Burnett, fully Carol Creighton Burnett

"Change is the end result of all true learning." -

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." -

"Things don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all." -

"What is required for effective change is continuity of sincere effort to release and let go of inefficient thought patterns from the past." - Doc Childre

"Envisioned future is what we aspire to become, to achieve, to create-something that will require significant change and progress to attain." - James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

"Leaders die, products become obsolete, markets change, new technologies emerge, and management fads come and go, but core ideology in a great company endures as a source of guidance and inspiration." - James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

"I cannot change the world, but I do not have to conform." - Marva Collins, born Marva Delores Nettles

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." - Irwin Corey, known as Professor Irwin Corey

"In our nation, the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people, not the media or the financial system or megacorporations or the two political parties, who have the power to create change." - Howard Dean

"Being aware of what your mind thinks, believes, and remembers gives you the chance to change your reality. As on the inside, so on the outside." - David Dibble

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. We will not solve the problems of the world from the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. More than anything else, this new century demands new thinking: We must change our materially based analyses of the world around us to include broader, more multidimensional perspectives. " - Albert Einstein

"The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -

"I have not ceased in being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life...specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown; and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you venture too far." -

"In our modern society, in which knightly virtues are for the most part lacking, romanticizing the folklore heralding the virtues of friendship, trust, and heroism is understandable. I firmly believe that if the values held by the mythical knight in shining armor who stood up for right and good were followed or embodied today, they could in fact change the world." - H. Roy Kim

"The man who doesn't change his mind doesn't think." - Freddie Laker, fully Sir Frederick Alfred Laker

"The Ethics and equity and the principles of justice do not change with the calendar." -

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

"You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine." - Og Mandino

"Be content with what you are, and wish not change, not dread your last day, not long for it." -

"Once people understand that change is a process--a developmental progression with distinct steps to move through--then our capacity to alter behavior is quite impressive. It is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash." - John Norcross

"Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved in his own life." - Herbert Otto

"Families in crisis will do everything, exhaust every resource, except to change themselves!" - Daniel V. Papero, aka "Dan"

"You don't have to have a lot of hope, just keep working. When we're involved in social change, the greatest thing is that we meet people who teach how to live beyond hope." - Fran Peavey

"Kindness [has the] power to create change, to make things happen. And in a period of human history in which we are obsessed with change - personal or political - and are unsure whether it is possible at all, kindness could be our salvation." - Anita Roddick

"Let's stop teaching our children to fear change and to protect the status quo. Let's teach them to inquire and to debate, to ask questions until they hear answers. The best way to do that is to change traditional schooling." - Anita Roddick

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn ... and change." - Carl Ransom Rogers

"Anyone can become part of the critical mass that offers us a chance of improving the world before it is too late. You can rethink your goals and question what you are doing with your life. If your present way of living does not stand up against an impartial standard of value, then you can change it." - Peter Singer

"If a higher ethical consciousness spreads, it will utterly change the society in which we live." - Peter Singer

"To see what students learn in school, look at how they leave school. If they leave thinking that reading and writing are difficult and pointless, that mathematics is confusing, that history is irrelevant, and that art is a bore, then that is what they have been taught. People learn what is demonstrated to them, and this reality will not change to suit the convenience of politicians and educations administrators." - Frank Smith

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude." - Amy Tan

"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 himself and the world around him." - Dylan Marlais Thomas

"A competitive world offers two possibilities. You can lose. Or, if you want to win, you can change." - Lester Thurow, fully Lester Carl Thurow, aka L.C. Thurow

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." - Harriet Tubman

"Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change." - Jim Wallis

"There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint." - C. M. Ward