Change can be challenging, but it’s also an essential part of growth and progress. Sometimes, all it takes is a few powerful words to inspire the courage and determination needed to embrace new beginnings. In this collection, you’ll find 69 motivational change quotes carefully selected to encourage you to take that next step forward with confidence and optimism. Whether you’re facing a major life transition or seeking daily inspiration, these quotes will help spark the motivation you need to create positive transformation.
1. “No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time. ” - Emma Goldman
2. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.[These words are also inscribed upon his grave]” - Karl Marx
3. “I love this world," he added. "That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can, but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands.” - Charles de Lint
4. “She had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For at that moment, all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that is familiar.” - Paulo Coelho
5. “A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter.” - Patricia Briggs
6. “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, that pursuit must go on.[Address before the United Nations, September 20 1963]” - John F. Kennedy
7. “Remember that on any world the wind eventually wears away the stone, because the stone can only crumble; the wind can change.” - A.C. Crispin
8. “No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you've come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.” - Madonna
9. “It is precisely by binding things together that traditional visions perpetuate themselves and the prejudgments contained within them; and it is by insisting on prising things apart that we have liberated ourselves from them” - Ernest Gellner
10. “When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer here to help us deceive ourselves.” - Yiyun Li
11. “People told her she hadn't changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn't.” - L.M. Montgomery
12. “The study of doctrine and the teaching of doctrine will change behavior more than the study of behavior will change behavior.” - Boyd K. Packer
13. “Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people...but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.” - Steve Maraboli
14. “Renew, release, let go. Yesterday’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring it back. You can’t “should’ve” done something. You can only DO something. Renew yourself. Release that attachment. Today is a new day!” - Steve Maraboli
15. “The universe is so well balanced that the mere fact that you have a problem also serves as a sign that there is a solution.” - Steve Maraboli
16. “IF YOU WANT TO CREATE A CHANGE, you must challenge not only the models of Unreality, but the paradigms that underwrite them.” - Stafford Beer
17. “The average personality re-shapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul-desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change.” - Truman Capote
18. “History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what do do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.” - Jill Lepore
19. “Change not only was inevitable, but usually brought its own rewards.” - Nicholas Sparks
20. “I will write one book that will change entire humankind if only you have enough guts to read my previous ones.” - Santosh Kalwar
21. “When you listen, it's amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you've learned, it's amazing what you can change.” - Audrey McLaughlin
22. “Nobody can change who you are, except for you.” - Jean Kwok
23. “I thank God today she found the courage in her heart to love me enough so that someday I could tell you that even a black ex-con from Angola that stabbed a man could maybe someday do some good in the world if he gets a chance.” - Ron Hall, Denver Moore
24. “Civilizations grow by agreements and accomodations and accretions, not by repudiations. The rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies, they keep the stream from getting stagnant but they get swept down and absorbed, they're a side issue. Quiet desperation is another name for the human condition. If revolutionaries would learn that they can't remodel society by day after tomorrow -- haven't the wisdom to and shouldn't be permitted to -- I'd have more respect for them ... Civilizations grow and change and decline -- they aren't remade.” - Wallace Stegner
25. “No marriage stays in the same pattern forever. It is both the best feature of marriage and the worst, that it inevitably changes.” - Lisa Kleypas
26. “The old resists the new one.'Change hurts' is the reason.” - Toba Beta
27. “Love without hope will not survive.Love without faith changes nothing.Love gives power to hope and faith.” - Toba Beta
28. “It's much easier . . . to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.” - Markus Zusak
29. “Always try coercing others proves one doesn't want to change himself.(Suka maksain pendapat adalah bukti seseorang tak siap berubah).” - Toba Beta
30. “Growth is a part of change.” - Toba Beta
31. “The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.” - George R.R. Martin
32. “I can't change what's happened to me in my life, or make what's not occurred take place. But I can't say I like it, or accept it, or believe it's for the best. I don't and never shall, not even if I'm damned for it.” - Margaret Laurence
33. “Your environment will eat your goals and plans for breakfast.” - Steve Pavlina
34. “From p. 40 of Signet Edition of Thomas Wolfe's _You Can't Go Home Again_ (1940):Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your ear upon the earth and listen.The voice of forest water in the night, a woman's laughter in the dark, the clean, hard rattle of raked gravel, the cricketing stitch of midday in hot meadows, the delicate web of children's voices in bright air--these things will never change.The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence of morning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of young boughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, the thorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry--these things will always be the same.All things belonging to the earth will never change--the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth--all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth--these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever.The tarantula, the adder, and the asp will also never change. Pain and death will always be the same. But under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful, coming into life again like April.” - Thomas Wolfe
35. “One factor that makes human being reluctant to have hope is the fear of disappointment.Do not be afraid of disappointment! The more you afraid of it, the smaller your expectation.Face and overcome the disappointment, even though it felt bitter in soul and pain in body.If you go through and pass it, then your soul and body will be stronger than previous level.When hope emerged, change will occur because of that, both in your soul and in your body.Fear of disapointment is a main enemy of good hope and great change within the human being.Only by facing and overcoming the fear of disapointment, man will become stronger and wiser. ~Salah satu faktor yang membuat manusia enggan untuk berharap adalah rasa takut akan kecewa.Jangan takut dengan kekecewaan! Semakin engkau takut menghadapinya, semakin kecil pengharapanmu.Hadapi dan lawanlah rasa kecewa, meskipun terasa pahit di jiwa dan terasa sakit di tubuh.Jika engkau mampu dan lulus, maka jiwa dan tubuhmu akan lebih kuat dari kondisi sebelumnya.Ketika harapan muncul, perubahan akan terjadi, baik dalam jiwa maupun dalam tubuh manusia.Rasa takut akan kecewa adalah musuh utama pengharapan yang baik dan perubahan yang agung dalam diri manusia.Hanya dengan menghadapi dan melalui rasa takut akan kecewa, seseorang dapat menjadi lebih kuat dan bijaksana.” - Toba Beta
36. “My interest in Sufism began when I was a college student. At the time, I was a rebellious young woman who liked to wrap several shawls of ‘-isms’ around her shoulders: I was a leftist, feminist, nihilist, environmentalist, anarcho-pacifist…I wasn’t interested in any religion and the difference between ‘religiosity’ and ‘spirituality’ was lost to me. Having spent some time of my childhood with a loving grandmother with many superstitions and beliefs, I had a sense the world was not composed of solely material things and there was more to life than I could see. But the truth is, I wasn’t interested in understanding the world. I only wanted to change it.” - Elif Shafak
37. “This is what I say: I've got good news and bad news.The good news is, you don't have to worry, you can't change the past.The bad news is, you don't have to worry, no matter how hard you try, you can't change the past.The universe just doesn't put up with that. We aren't important enough. No one is. Even in our own lives. We're not strong enough, willful enough, skilled enough in chronodiegetic manipulation to be able to just accidentally change the entire course of anything, even ourselves.” - Charles Yu
38. “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” - Michael Michalko
39. “Don't waste your energy trying to change opinions ... Do your thing, and don't care if they like it.” - Tina Fey
40. “It's so damn hard to bloom... to change. Even when you want to change, want it more than anything in the world, it's hard. Desire to change isn't enough. Or desperation. Couldn't be done without...love,” - Dean Koontz
41. “For fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed.” - Jeanette Winterson
42. “Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.” - Lauren Oliver
43. “It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.” - Samuel Beckett
44. “Whatever he had found, it made him a better person. Maybe that's what love was, finding the person who brings out the best in you and eliminates the worst.” - Diana Holquist
45. “What we call life...is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die. 'When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.' This, even now during this life time, every moment we are born and die, but we continue. If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can't we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or a Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body?” - Walpola Rahula
46. “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” - Steve Jobs
47. “At any given moment in our lives, there are certain things that could have happened but didn't. The magic momentsgo unrecognized, and then suddenly, the hand of destiny changes everything.” - Paulo Coelho
48. “We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.” - C. JoyBell C.
49. “The present convergence of crises––in money, energy, education, health, water, soil, climate, politics, the environment, and more––is a birth crisis, expelling us from the old world into a new.” - Charles Eisenstein
50. “Your life begins to change the day you take responsibility for it.” - Steve Maraboli
51. “Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
52. “Then you must reconcile yourself to the fact that something is always hurt by any change. If you do this, you will not be hurt yourself.” - Roger Zelazny
53. “Frustration, despair, angst, anxiety, hurt, grief, unhappiness, envy, jealousy, and all the other painful emotions are catalysts of change in our lives. They motivate us to do things differently, to change our status quo.” - Kate Levinson
54. “We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.” - Brené Brown
55. “Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. We don't know how to let go. We're like a Jack-in-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we struggle the harder it is to get back in the box.” - Henry Miller
56. “Where there is will there is a way Where there is a way there is progress And where there is progress there is change.” - Amit Abraham
57. “Sex mirrored our drinking; both defined our relationship: selfish, detached, indulgent and satisfying.” - BJ Neblett
58. “...by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it's too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?” - Robert Penn Warren
59. “In fantasy the world is always adapting to you, in reality you are always adapting to the world. That is the only difference.” - Lisa Cander
60. “People tend to focus on the things that they don't like about themselves. While that's important for change, it's equally important to focus on what they love about themselves. For every one thing you dislike about yourself, think of five things you like about yourself. It's a balancing act.” - Tom Giaquinto
61. “All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” - Max Mckeown
62. “Change – real change – starts at the core of your being; it starts when you encounter the One who created you and you can no longer stand any essence of yourself that varies from His holiness.” - Amy Layne Litzelman
63. “...you have changed everything for me- you rearranged the furniture and now you've changed the view from my window!...” - John Geddes
64. “Adapt to your surrounding but remain flexible for growing.” - Ashley Porter
65. “Sometimes our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts.” - Cassandra Clare
66. “When all great movements are in their infancy, they are nourished basically on the mother's milk of righteous indignation. It is a time of red-faced screaming and finger pointing. That's a good thing - we need to be angry to move toward any systemic change. But ultimately the fingers have to stop pointing and the hand has got to get down to work - and the work is always messy.” - Jackson Galaxy
67. “If you would stop worrying about things you don’t control and release what God has put into you, you will change everything around you.” - Steve Maraboli
68. “Throughout history, while day-to-day life has changed, humanity hasn't.” - Rachel Harris
69. “We must throw out the old, fear-based thought-forms and evolve, and begin to live as higher beings of compassion.” - Bryant McGill
