92 Quotes About Change

Change is an inevitable part of life that brings with it a whirlwind of emotions, from excitement and optimism to fear and uncertainty. Whether we encounter change in our personal lives, careers, or societal dynamics, it has a profound impact on our growth and development. Recognizing the power and potential of change can inspire us to embrace it rather than resist it. To help you navigate this ever-evolving journey, we've curated a collection of the top 92 quotes about change. These timeless words of wisdom from thought leaders, philosophers, and visionaries offer insights and encouragement to help you adapt, grow, and thrive amidst life's continuous transformations. Dive in and let these quotes inspire you to see change not as a challenge, but as an opportunity for growth and renewed perspective.

1. “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw

2. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela

3. “Let him who would move the world first move himself.” - Socrates

4. “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” - William Jennings Bryan

5. “The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.” - Susan Sontag

6. “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.” - Alan Cohen

7. “How he could be a good user of LSD," I asked, "And know about the spiritual dimension - all that sort of thing - and still be a crook? I don't understand.""Then it's time you did. Psychedelic drugs don't change you - they don't change you character - unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can't impose it...” - Alexander Shulgin

8. “Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that's creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.That's why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That's why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam.Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He's an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn't care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it's important, not because he expects you to pay him for it.Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does.Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.” - Seth Godin

9. “It is not by believing but by doubting that one can attain to the truth, which is ever changing form and condition.” - Augusto Roa Bastos

10. “Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change.” - bell hooks

11. “Maybe it was inertia -or worse, fear- that was keeping me in the same place.” - Jennifer Weiner

12. “If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door” - Milton Berle

13. “One day spent with someone you love can change everything.” - Mitch Albom

14. “Fair as the moon and joyful as the light;Tot wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;Not as she is, but as she fills his dreams.” - Christina Rossetti

15. “If you intend to change, decide what you want and live your life accordingly.” - Steve Maraboli

16. “Change is the parent of progress.” - Steve Maraboli

17. “You cannot change what you are, only what you do.” - Philip Pullman

18. “I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference -- fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror -- the message that we're sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called "realistic fiction." (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that's a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn't have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's better. Maybe it's a higher civilization, maybe it's a barbaric civilization. But it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we're also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in The Book of the New Sun], for example. The difference beteween Silk as an augur and Silk as calde [in The Book of the Long Sun]. You see?We don't always have to be this. There can be something else. We can stop doing the thing that we're doing. Moms Mabley had a great line in some movie or other -- she said, "You keep on doing what you been doing and you're gonna keep on gettin' what you been gettin'." And we don't have to keep on doing what we've been doing. We can do something else if we don't like what we're gettin'. I think a lot of the purpose of fiction ought to be to tell people that.” - Gene Wolfe

19. “Fashion is about going ahead, not about memory.” - Karl Lagerfeld

20. “Charitably... I think... sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And, in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change.” - Neil Gaiman

21. “We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” - Charles R. Swindoll

22. “Memories do not change, and change is the law of existence. If our dead, the closest, the most beloved, were to return to us after a long absence and instead of the old, familiar trees were to find in our souls English gardens and stone walls -- that is to say, other loves, other tastes, other interests, they would gaze upon us sadly and tenderly for a moment, wiping away their tears, and then return to their tombs to rest.” - Teresa De LA Parra

23. “...things can happen when you least expect them so you always gotta be prepared. And pay attention to the details. The devil is in the details.” - Lesley Kagen

24. “You can't stop the futureYou can't rewind the pastThe only way to learn the secret...is to press play.” - Jay Asher

25. “ Inevitably, if we are to grow and change as adults, we must gradually learn to confront the challenges, paradoxes, problems and painful reality of an insecure world.” - James P. Krehbiel

26. “As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.” - Charles W. Chesnutt

27. “I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.” - Sarah Ockler

28. “Never run from the truth. It is always there; it never changes – save your energy.” - Steve Maraboli

29. “People tend to resist a change into something new and different.But after it's succeded, they easily say that the change is a must.” - Toba Beta

30. “The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.” - William Seward

31. “New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises 'Why then are you not taking part in them?” - H.G. Wells

32. “People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.” - Sue Monk Kidd

33. “I've come to believe that in everyone's life, there's one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything.” - Nicholas Sparks

34. “If you really want things to change, you can make them change no matter where you are.” - Hannah Harrington

35. “Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.” - Arundhati Roy

36. “I smile, loving him for changing with me, for going where my Neglect has taken us, for getting the new me.” - Lisa Genova

37. “Do I dare Disturb the universe?” - T. S. Eliot

38. “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

39. “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

40. “This was when I learned that you have to give up your life as you know it to get a new one: that sometimes you need to let go of everything you're clinging to and start over, whether because you've outgrown it or because it's not working anymore, or because it was wrong for you in the first place.” - Kelly Cutrone

41. “(Can human beings change? The humor, and the sadness, of remarriage comedies can be said to result from the fact that we have no good answer to that question.)” - Stanley Cavell

42. “Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.” - Charles Dickens

43. “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

44. “I learned long ago that when change comes, you gotta slow down and take note of it. In the midst of that change is all the possibility in the world.” - Bertice Berry

45. “I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening. Because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me. Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.” - Marshall McLuhan

46. “If you’re reading these words, perhaps it’s because something has kicked open the door for you, and you’re ready to embrace change. It isn’t enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.” - Sharon Salzberg

47. “Flexibility requires an open mind and a welcoming of new alternatives.” - Deborah Day

48. “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

49. “Absolutes are Coercion.Change is absolute.” - Allen Ginsberg

50. “Be careful who you tell your secrets to because when situations change... sometimes, so do people.” - Gwen Ro

51. “Change? Start by keeping a small promise.” - Jill Telford

52. “Change is the most beneficial power available to you, simply change the things you don't like, replacing them with your true desires.” - Steven Redhead

53. “Strange, isn't it?" he asks."Where life takes you and how much can change.” - Emma Cameron

54. “The power to change is in my hands.” - Helen M. Ryan

55. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” - Brené Brown

56. “I feel that we are often taken out of our comfort zones, pushed and shoved out of our nests, because if not, we would never know what we could do with our wings, we would never see the horizon and the sun setting on it, we would never know that there's something far better beyond where we are at the moment. It can hurt, but then later you say "thank you." I have been pushed and shoved and have fallen out and away, so very, very, many, many times! And others around me have not! But then, the others haven't seen what I have seen or felt what I have felt or been who I have been, they can't become what I have become. I am me.” - C. JoyBell C.

57. “No one can change a person, but a person can be the reason someone changes.” - Shannon L. Alder

58. “The fire of my tribulations had not simply been pain to be endured. It had been an agent of transformation. After all that I'd been through, I'd changed. Not for the worse, I was pretty sure--at least not yet. But only a moron or a freaking lunatic could have faced the things I had and remained unfazed by them.” - Jim Butcher

59. “Behavior precedes belief - that is, most people must engage in a behavior before they accept that it is beneficial; then they see the results, and then they believe that it is the right thing to do....implementation precedes buy-in; it does not follow it.” - Douglas B. Reeves

60. “Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.” - Erin Morgenstern

61. “It’s such an amazing awakening to realize that nothing in this universe happens TO YOU, 100% happens FOR YOU.” - Steve Maraboli

62. “He is setting out to cure the world, she is setting out to save the world, but I have chosen to inspire the world. Each of us have chosen to try and do our part to change world. What have you decided to do?” - Tommy Tran

63. “Nothing lasts. Everything changes. But the changes are the same. Winter will always turn to spring.” - Susan Trott

64. “Making this a better world happens one person at a time. You cannot force your beliefs on anyone. Rather, be the example that others can emulate. Live your life so that others may be inspired by your words and deeds. That's how change happens.” - Tom Giaquinto

65. “Sex mirrored our drinking; both defined our relationship: selfish, detached, indulgent and satisfying.” - BJ Neblett

66. “Can't say it often enough - change your hair, change your life.” - Thomas Pynchon

67. “Do the new, be the change.” - Neeraj Vohara

68. “The game had to be played the same way every day or the pieces would fall to the floor, the board would collapse, and the illusion that you were shaping your own life, that you were in control, would break.” - Kevin Brockmeier

69. “Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit. 'Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.” - Neil Gaiman

70. “Professional learning does not advance… through the inexorable confirmation of previous certainties, but through a systematic challenge to our present conceptions” - Douglass B. Reeves

71. “It's not who you were, It's who you've become that matters” - Jeff Radford

72. “You don’t have to solve it, only evolve it!” - Silvia Hartmann

73. “You but winnowed out those who have made their pride a funeral shroud." Jaren met Rain's eyes. "Our world has changed, Feyreisen. I have watched great Fey cities die, seen our forests fade back into desert, and listened to my shei'tani weep for the children her womb will not bear. It seems to me when the ways of the past lead only to death, then change is the only hope for life.” - C.L. Wilson

74. “Contrary to what you may have heard or been taught, your ego isn't a bad thing. It means well. The ego wants to keep you safe, secure, protected and accepted. The problem comes in because it usually attempts to do this by keeping you in the same small, reclusive orbit that you've always gravitated toward. Life, on the other hand, is about change, growth and unfolding ever-greater aspects of the self. We all know the pain that is experienced when life decides to change even though you don't want it to. The harder you try to hold on to the comfort and safety of "what was" or "how it's always been done," the more pain you feel.” - Charles Holt

75. “In such a society as ours the only possible chance for change, for mobility, for political, economic, and moral flow lies in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, in the use of fictions, of language.” - Kathy Acker

76. “...at some point we must achieve our identity -we can't be always in adolescence seeking who we are...” - John Geddes

77. “Winners hate losing more than changing while others hate changing more than losing.” - Orrin Woodward

78. “When we pray we admit defeat.” - Anthony Burgess

79. “You must be willing to give up what you are, to become what you want to be.” - Orrin Woodward

80. “Sometimes our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts.” - Cassandra Clare

81. “When we must pay the true price for the depletion of nature’s gifts, materials will become more precious to us, and economic logic will reinforce, and not contradict, our heart’s desire to treat the world with reverence and, when we receive nature’s gifts, to use them well.” - Charles Eisenstein

82. “After a great blow, or crisis, after the first shock and then after the nerves have stopped screaming and twitching, you settle down to the new condition of things and feel that all possibility of change has been used up. You adjust yourself, and are sure that the new equilibrium is for eternity. . . But if anything is certain it is that no story is ever over, for the story which we think is over is only a chapter in a story which will not be over, and it isn't the game that is over, it is just an inning, and that game has a lot more than nine innings. When the game stops it will be called on account of darkness. But it is a long day.” - Robert Penn Warren

83. “The most important point to remember in developing self-confidence is to take responsibility for who we are. This empowers us. We can change anything, do anything, and be anything when we assume full responsibility for ourselves.” - Rachael Bermingham

84. “An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.” - Idries Shah

85. “To be a librarian is not to be neutral, or passive, or waiting for a question. It is to be a radical positive change agent within your community.” - R. David Lankes

86. “I don't understand how everything changes, how the layers of your life get buried. Impossible. At some point, at some time, we must all explode.” - Lauren Oliver

87. “Nobody really enjoys having to pacify their feelings. It's too much like failure; it reminds you of weakness. but feelings don't want to be pacified, either. They want to be fulfilled. You fulfill your positive feelings (love, hope, optimism, appreciation, approval) by connecting with other people, expressing your best self. You fulfill your negative feelings by releasing them. Your whole system recognizes negative feelings as toxic. It's futile to bottle them up, divert them, ignore them, or try to rise above them. Either negativity is leaving or it's hanging on - it has no other alternative. As you fulfill emotions, your brain will change and form new patterns, which is the whole goal.” - Deepak Chopra

88. “Never look at what you want to change. Always look at what has changed.” - Jane Kang

89. “Throughout history, while day-to-day life has changed, humanity hasn't.” - Rachel Harris

90. “Change is the one sure thing in life” - Kate Lord Brown

91. “What few rules appear to be in place are all made up.” - Patti Digh

92. “Can you hold happiness? Can you drink it? Can you taste it? Can you touch it? Of course not, it is immaterial. So, stop looking for it in the material world! Happiness is experienced within; when we bridge the gap between what we want to experience and how we choose to behave.” - Steve Maraboli