30 of the Best Quotes about Change

Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to resist change and, the older we get the more change resistant we become..

Nevertheless, despite our instinctive resistance to change, we must learn to embrace new challenges. In today’s society the pace of development is immensely accelerating, and as Charles Darwin said once: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” This applies to life as well as to business.

We have collected 50 of the best quotes to motivate you to embrace change as a chance and not to see it as a hazard. Change is the only constant in life. The easiest way to cope with change is to love it!

The quotes are sorted chronologically by the author’s birth year. Enjoy and share!

Your life is
what your thoughts make it.
Confucius

(551 – 479 BC, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher)

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy,
not on fighting the old,
but on building the new.
Socrates

(c.470 – 399 BC, classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher)

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

(4th century BC, Chinese philosopher and writer)

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

(1207 – 1273, Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian)

Life is a progress, and not a station.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 – 1882, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet)

It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.
Charles Darwin

(1809 – 1882, English naturalist, geologist and biologist)

Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau

(1817 – 1862, American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist,
naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian)

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways.
The point, however, is to change it.
Karl Marx, Eleven Theses on Feuerbach
[These words are also inscribed upon his grave]

(1818 – 1883, German philosopher, economist and political theorist)

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Frederick Douglass

(1818 – 1895, American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman)

Taking a new step, uttering a new word,
is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

(1821 – 1881, Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher)

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

(1828 – 1910, Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time)

Those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw

(1856 – 1950, Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist)

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

(1860 – 1925, American orator and politician from Nebraska)

If you always do what you’ve always done,
you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
Henry Ford

(1863 – 1947, American captain of industry and a business magnate)

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi

(1869 – 1948, Indian activist)

To improve is to change;
to be perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill

(1874 – 1965, British politician, army officer, and writer)

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

(1879 – 1955, German-born theoretical physicist)

Nothing happens unless something is moved.
Albert Einstein

(1879 – 1955, German-born theoretical physicist)

I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso

(1881 – 1973, Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright)

Don’t spend time beating on a wall,
hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel

(1883 – 1971, French fashion designer and a business woman)

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

(1895 – 1983, American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist)

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Norman Vincent Peale

(1898 – 1993, American minister and author)

After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years,
look it over carefully.
After five years,
look at it with suspicion.
And after ten years,
throw it away and start all over.
Alfred Edward Perlman
Comment which appeared in the New York Times on July 3, 1958

(1902 – 1983, American railroad executive; president of the Penn Central Transportation Company)

When we are no longer able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor Frankl

(1905 – 1997, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist)

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

(1908 – 1970, American psychologist; best known for creating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)

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

(1910 – 1997, Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary)

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change.
If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.
Sido L. Ridolfi

(1913 – 2004, American Democratic Party politician)

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

(1917 – 1963, American politician; 35th President of the United States)

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

(1918 – 2013, South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader)

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

(1921 – 1994, American writer of inspirational maxims)