– Often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi
Meaning: If you want the world to be different, start by changing your own behaviour. Gandhi wrote something similar, but this short version is a later summary.
23 English quotes
Quotes about change & growth
Quotes about changing yourself, accepting change and growing as a person.
Quotes
– John F. Kennedy, speech in Frankfurt (1963)
Meaning: Everything changes, so we must look ahead. People who think only about today or yesterday will be left behind.
– Reinhold Niebuhr, the Serenity Prayer (c. 1932), popular version
Meaning: Some things you can change and some you can't. Stay calm about the first kind, act bravely on the second, and learn to tell them apart.
- serenity
- – a calm, peaceful state of mind
– George Bernard Shaw, Everybody's Political What's What? (1944)
Meaning: Nothing improves unless things change – and that starts with being willing to change your own opinions.
- change their minds
- – form a new opinion or decision
– Often attributed to Heraclitus
Meaning: The water in a river is always moving, so it is never the same river – and you are never the same person either. Everything is always changing.
– Often attributed to Margaret Mead
Meaning: You don't need millions of people to make a difference. Big changes in history usually start with a few people who care a lot.
- committed
- – strongly loyal to a cause or goal
- indeed
- – in fact; really
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
– Often attributed to Leo Tolstoy
Meaning: It is easy to want other people and society to change. It is much harder – and more useful – to change yourself.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
– Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, part two, on logotherapy
Meaning: Sometimes you cannot change what happens to you. Then the only thing left is to change how you think and respond.
- challenged
- – faced with something difficult that tests you
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
Meaning: The world may stay the same, but the way we see it changes as we grow. Often the real change is inside us.
“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”
– Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1925)
Meaning: You cannot get better without changing. Churchill jokes that if you want to be perfect, you have to change a lot.
– Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter (2008)
Meaning: You can't control everything that happens to you, but you can choose not to let it make you smaller or weaker.
- reduced
- – made smaller or less important
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
– James Baldwin, As Much Truth As One Can Bear (1962)
Meaning: Facing a problem honestly doesn't always solve it. But you can never solve a problem you refuse to look at.
- faced
- – looked at honestly and dealt with
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
– Dr. Seuss, The Lorax (1971)
Meaning: Things only improve when ordinary people care enough to act. Don't wait for someone else to fix it.
- a whole awful lot
- – very, very much (informal and playful)
“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”
– Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Meaning: You don't need to be powerful or important to make a big difference. Anyone can change what happens next.
- course
- – the direction in which something moves
– Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior (revised edition, 1984)
Meaning: Don't waste energy fighting old habits or problems. Put it into creating something better. Often credited to Socrates, it is actually said by a character called Socrates in Millman's novel.
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
– Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975)
Meaning: Waiting for time to fix your problems doesn't work. If you want something to change, you must do it.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
– Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
Meaning: Fighting change only confuses and frightens us. Accept it, go with it and even enjoy it.
- make sense out of
- – understand
- plunge into
- – jump into suddenly and completely
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.”
– Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
Meaning: Everything you do has an effect on the world, and the world changes you back. Change always goes both ways.
“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”
– Max De Pree, Leadership Is an Art (1987)
Meaning: To reach a new goal, you have to be willing to change. Staying the same will keep you where you are.
- remaining
- – staying
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1600)
Meaning: We understand who we are today, but we cannot know who we might become. People can grow and change in surprising ways.
- know not
- – do not know (old English)
– Jack Welch
Meaning: Don't wait until a crisis forces you to change. If you change early, you choose how it happens.
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”
– Chinese proverb
Meaning: Slow progress is still progress. The real danger is not changing at all.
- Be not afraid
- – do not be afraid (old-fashioned form)
– Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964)
Meaning: The world is changing fast, and people must accept it. Dylan's song became an anthem for young people who wanted a new kind of society in the 1960s.
- a-changin'
- – changing (old, informal style used in songs)