Quotes on Change

If you came here looking for quotes on change, you are in the right place. Below you will find the quotes about change that consistently top the various internet lists. May you find what you are looking for.

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“Be the change that you wish to see in the world” is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Here’s an actual quote from him: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

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“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
―Rob Siltanen

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“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.”
―Stephen Chbosky

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“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
―Leo Tolstoy

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
―Margaret Mead

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“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
―John Green

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

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“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
―Lao Tzu

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“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
―Albert Einstein

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“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
―Rumi

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“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”
―Roy T. Bennett

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“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
―Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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“The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.”
―C. JoyBell C.

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“Even if you cannot change all the people around you, you can change the people you choose to be around. Life is too short to waste your time on people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value you. Spend your life with people who make you smile, laugh, and feel loved.”
―Roy T. Bennett

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“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”
―Eric Roth

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“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
―Barack Obama

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“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
―Friedrich Nietzsche

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“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
―Paulo Coelho

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“Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.”
―Lemony Snicket

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“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
―Andy Warhol

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“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
―Rainer Maria Rilke

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“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.

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

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“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.”
―Steve Maraboli

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“I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change… I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back….”
―Erica Jong

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“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.”
―Kiran Desai

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“Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”
―Maya Angelou

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“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”
―Walter Mosley

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“You’re always you, and that don’t change, and you’re always changing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
―Neil Gaiman

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“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.”
―Katharine Hepburn

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“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
―Libba Bray

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“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
―Mother Teresa

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“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
―Eckhart Tolle

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“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
―Wayne W. Dyer

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“It’s never too late to change your life for the better. You don’t have to take huge steps to change your life. Making even the smallest changes to your daily routine can make a big difference to your life.”
―Roy T. Bennett

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“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
―Fyodor Dostoevsky

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“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”
―Rick Warren

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“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
―Buckminster Fuller

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“Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you’ve changed, by believing. Once you’ve changed, other things start to follow. Isn’t that the way it works?”
―Diane Duane

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

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

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“What you’re supposed to do / when you don’t like a thing is change it. / If you can’t change it, / change the way you think about it.”
―Maya Angelou

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“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”
―Aldous Huxley

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“You cannot change anyone, but you can be the reason someone changes.”
―Roy T. Bennett

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“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

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“All that you touch You Change. / All that you Change Changes you. / The only lasting truth is Change. / God / is Change.”
―Octavia E. Butler

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“Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.”
―Shannon Alder

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“Change, like healing, takes time.”
―Veronica Roth

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“Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others– it only changes yours.”
―Shannon Alder

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“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”
―Sophocles

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“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
―Ovid

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“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
―Jon Krakauer

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“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”
―Malala Yousafzai

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“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
―Alan Watts

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“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
―Brene Brown

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“When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.”
―Andy Warhol

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“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
―Winston S. Churchill

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“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
―Haruki Murakami

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“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”
―William S. Burroughs

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“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”
―Martin Luther

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“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.”
―Helen Exley

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“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”
―Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
-Victor Hugo

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“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
―Leo Tolstoy

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“We are the change we have been waiting for.”
―Barack Obama

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“Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.”
―Bryce Courtenay

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“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”
―Audre Lorde

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“Change is the end result of all true learning.”
―Leo Buscaglia

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“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

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“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
―Carl Jung

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“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
―Reinhold Niebuhr

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“A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.”
―Spanish Proverb

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“Moving doesn’t change who you are. It only changes the view outside your window.”
―Rachel Hollis

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“Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.”
―Mandy Hale

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“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
-John Maxwell

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“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
―Hermann Hesse

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“Growth and comfort do not coexist.”
―Ginni Rometty

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“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”
―Raymond Lindquist

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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
―William Arthur Ward

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“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by discomforts.”
―Arnold Bennett

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“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
―John F. Kennedy

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“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.”
―Abraham Maslow

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“You must welcome change as the rule, but not as your ruler.”
―Denis Waitley

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“Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream.”
―Debby Boone

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“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
―Gail Sheehy

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“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.”
―Hugh Prather

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“There is nothing permanent except change.”
―Heraclitus

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“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetary.”
―Harold Wilson

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“Things do not change, we change.”
―Henry David Thoreau

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“There is nothing so stable as change.”
―Bob Dylan

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“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
―Flannery O’Connor

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“Change before you have to.”
―Jack Welch

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“Everything is constantly changing, including ourselves.”
―Buddha

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“By assessing our behaviors in terms of our own unmet needs, the impetus for change comes not out of shame, guilt, anger, or depression, but out of the genuine desire to contribute to our own and others’ well-being.”
―Marshall B. Rosenberg

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“Changing ourselves changes each other. / Each other is ourselves.”
―Cameron Conaway

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“Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.”
―Viktor E. Frankl

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“It only takes one person to make a change, you are often told. This is also a myth. Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen.”
―Ta-Nehisi Coates

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“The change in goal changes everything.”
―Stephen Denning

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“Throughout our lives, forces can push us toward or away from reaching our creative potential: a teacher’s compliment, a parent’s tolerance for tinkering, or an environment that welcomes new ideas. What matters most in the end, though, is this: your belief in your capacity to create positive change and the courage to take action.”
―Tom Kelley

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“Racial bias is largely unconscious, and herein lies the deepest challenge—the defensiveness that ensues upon any suggestion of racial bias. This defensiveness is classic white fragility because it protects our racial bias while simultaneously affirming our identities as open-minded. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to be confronted with an aspect of ourselves that we don’t like, but we can’t change what we refuse to see.”
―Robin DiAngelo

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Bonus quotes about change from change management leaders

“Thus, managers must be effective change agents who understand how to overcome resistance to change, deal with the inevitable stresses associated with change, and implement appropriate change strategies.”
―Linda A. Hill, Becoming a Manager

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“Considering organization change through a sociotechnical lens means that one would gather data about both the social and technical systems but would then consider and act with the perspective that the two are interdependent: A change in one system will directly affect the other, and this effect must be treated as another leverage in the change process.”
―W. Warner Burke, Organization Change

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“To become effective, productive, and satisfying to members, organizations need to change. It will come as no surprise to any observer of today’s organizations that change is a significant part of organizational life. Change is required at the organizational level as customers demand more, technologies are developed with a rapidly changing life cycle, and investors demand results.”
―Donald L. Anderson, Organization Development

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“An essential condition of any effective change program is that somebody in a strategic position really feels the need for change. In other words somebody or something is “hurting.” To be sure, some change efforts that introduce new technologies do not fit this generalization. As a general rule, if a change in people and the way they work together is contemplated, there must be a felt need at some strategic part of the organization.”
―Richard Beckhard, Organization Development

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“Changes, whether driven from inside or outside, eventually require some form of structural adaptation. Restructuring is a sensible but high-risk move. In the short term, structural change invariably produces confusion and resistance; things get worse before they get better. In the end, success depends on how well the new model aligns with environment, task, and technology.”
―Lee G. Bolman, Reframing Organizations

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“But even when change is meticulously planned, the unexpected and unforeseen still occurs. Strategies for overcoming potential obstacles can be prepared for but the unanticipated happens. Changing towards an unknowable future is always going to have elements of unpredictability and this is part of the paradox of change management.”
―Patrick Dawson, Managing Change

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“Although Louis never said so explicitly, he felt the most remarkable change of all was in how so many members of the colony had grown less afraid of change.”
―John P. Kotter, Our Iceberg Is Melting

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“We believe that an approach to change based on task alignment, starting at the periphery and moving steadily toward the corporate core, is the most effective way to achieve enduring organizational change. This is not to say that change can never start at the top, but it is uncommon and too risky as a deliberate strategy. Change is about learning. It is a rare CEO who knows in advance the fine-grained details of organizational change that the many diverse units of a large corporation demand. Moreover, most of today’s senior executives developed in an era in which top-down hierarchy was the primary means for organizing and managing. They must learn from innovative approaches coming from younger unit managers closer to the action.”
―Michael Beer, Russell A. Eisenstat, Bert Spector, Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change

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“If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”
―Kurt Lewin, as attributed in Charles W. Tolman’s Problems of Theoretical Psychology