Begin To Make A Change Quotes & Sayings

Everyone not already following their own path would begin to feel dissatisfied with themselves and be forced to make a choice: they would either have to accept an existence beset with disappointment and pain or else come to realise that everyone was born to be happy. Having made their choice, they would have no option but to change, and the great struggle, the Jihad, would begin. — Paulo Coelho

Squinting in the darkness Anya could just make out a strange curving symbol scratched into the bark. Baba Zosia scored a line through it, disfiguring the symbol. Anya felt something in the air change and give, like the forest had let out a breath it had been holding around them. Something like static pricked the back of her neck as Baba Zosia cut her finger and smeared blood on the tree. The strange symbol melted into the bark, healing the tree to appear like nothing had been carved on it to begin with. Lifting her hands towards the campsite Baba Zosia started to chant softly in the complicated language of the tribe. Magic thrummed through the air, making Anya's own flare and itch under her skin. She rubbed her arms to stop it. Around her a breeze picked up and the campground, with its tracks in the mud and stains from the fires all melted away until there was nothing but autumn leaf litter and debris in its place. It looked like it hadn't been disturbed for years. — Amy Kuivalainen

Nature does abhor a vacuum, and when you begin moving out of your life what you do not want, you automatically are making way for what you do want. By letting go of the lesser, you automatically make room for your greater good to come in. — Catherine Ponder

What holds true for the individual holds true for a society. It is never static; if it does not grow, it decays; if it does not transcend the status quo for the better, it changes for the worse. Often we, the individual or the people who make up a society, have the illusion we could stand still and not alter the given situation in the one or the other direction. This is one of the most dangerous illusions. The moment we stand still, we begin to decay. — Erich Fromm

It is the well educated who will improve society - and they will improve it, at first, by criticizing it, and we are giving them the tools to criticize it. Naturally, as students, the brighter of them will begin their improvements upon society by criticizing us." To Owen, old Archie Thorndike would sing a slightly different song: "It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change. I'm not going to change; I'm going to retire! Get the new headmaster to make the changes; that's when I made changes - when I was new." "WHAT CHANGES DID YOU MAKE?" Owen Meany asked. "That's another reason I'm retiring!" old Thorny told Owen amiably. "My memory's shot! — John Irving

If we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of the earth, but also the earth's ability to produce. We will see that beauty and utility are alike dependent upon the health of the world. But we will also see through the fads and the fashions of protest. We will see that war and oppression and pollution are not separate issues, but are aspects of the same issue. Amid the outcries for the liberation of this group or that, we will know that no person is free except in the freedom of other persons, and that man's only real freedom is to know and faithfully occupy his place - a much humbler place than we have been taught to think - in the order of creation.
(pg.89, "Think Little") — Wendell Berry

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us ... What I am saying is that if we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of earth, but also the earth's ability to produce. — Wendell Berry

[...]perhaps the secret of leading a life in which you would not always be worrying about things, or complaining about them, was to accept that there were people who just saw things differently from you and always would. Once you understood that, then you could accept the people themselves as they were and not try to change them. What was even more important, perhaps, was that you could love those people who looked at things so differently, because you realised that they were not trying to make life hard for you by being what they were, but were simply doing their best. Then, when you started to love them, love would do the work that it always did and it would begin to transform them and then they would end up seeing things in the same way that you did. — Alexander McCall Smith

It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his object or ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable. If the change-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress, he must be sternly loyal to the ideal of change; he must not begin to flirt gaily with the ideal of monotony. Progress itself cannot progress — G.K. Chesterton

Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward, get real with yourself. Change will never happen if you lack the ability and courage to see yourself for who you really are. Begin to elevate yourself today. Try to make better decisions. Become a beauty seeker. If you can begin to believe in your own beauty, you can then begin to believe in the beauty of others. The transformation of the world takes place in your heart. Once you reach the summit of your own heart you will see beauty is everywhere. — Bryant McGill

Complaining will not change things in your life; only action will. Make a list of all you need to do to change what doesn't work in your life and, little by little, begin making those changes. — Susan Jeffers

We all have received the divine injunction: 'Follow thou me.' It guided Peter. It motivated Paul. It can determine our personal destiny. Can we make the decision to follow in righteousness and truth the Redeemer of the world? With his help, a rebellious boy can become an obedient man, a wayward girl can cast aside the old self and begin anew. Indeed, the gospel of Jesus Christ can change lives. — Thomas S. Monson

We can't give up on people anymore. Even if most react like you say, some won't. So we start with the hearts we can change. That's how we make a difference--we begin with a ripple to end with a wave. — Romina Russell

Some of us come from families where we were not taught healthy emotional language and habits. We did not get a balanced perspective of the world and relationships, and some of us got a distorted view of where we stood in relation to the rest of the world. We felt (and many of us still do) less than. In order to make up for that, we learned to exaggerate and lie and blow our accomplishments way out of proportion in order to feel of some value. To succeed, we have to stop thinking we are less than other people. We tell ourselves we are not unworthy, inadequate, or unable to cope fully with life's problems. We begin to see the glass as half full instead of half empty. We have to get rid of feelings of inability before we can make progress. As we learn more about how false pride has held us back from our full potential, we remember, "If we change our thoughts, we can change ourselves. — Bill Pittman

I did not set out to be beloved and just, only strong."
'A King can be better than that," the Prince insisted.
"And so we all begin, determined to better our fathers' performances, knowing we can change the very nature of humanity, make it better, cleaner. But then daggers strike in the night, and peasants revolt, and all manner of atrocities become a necessity as breakfast. Only Princes believe in the greater good. Kings know there is only Reign, and all things may be committed in its holy name ... — Catherynne M Valente

Developing compassion for Congress and politicians is a good way to begin practicing the new social activism if you want to make effective changes in the world. Perhaps the most startling new insight of all is that there is no other way to effectively change the world. — Gary Zukav

I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself. — Dorothy Allison

Change the negative, self-loathing thoughts to positive, self-affirming ones. When you're positive about yourself and everything around you, you begin to see the world in a different light. Your life today is what you make of it. — Demi Lovato

5. Differentiation is easiest to make when the stimulus is smallest. In Awareness Through Movement, Feldenkrais wrote, "If I raise an iron bar I shall not feel the difference if a fly either lights on it or leaves it. If, on the other hand I am holding a feather, I shall feel a distinct difference if the fly were to settle on it. The same applies to all the senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, heat, and cold." If a sensory stimulus is very great (say, very loud music), we can notice a change in the level of that stimulus only if the change is quite significant. If the stimulus is small to begin with, then we can detect very small changes. (This phenomenon is called the Weber-Fechner law in physiology.) — Norman Doidge

No one should be allowed to stop in one place any longer than necessary. A man isn't a tree, and being settled in one place is his misfortune. It saps his courage, breaks his confidence. When a man settles down somewhere, he agrees to any and all of its conditions, even the disagreeable ones, and frightens himself with the uncertainty that awaits him. Change to him seems like abandonment, like a loss of an investment: someone else will occupy his domain, and he'll have to begin again. Digging oneself in marks the real beginning of old age, because a man is young as long as he isn't afraid to make new beginnings. If he stays in the same place, he has to put up with things, or take action. If he moves on, he keeps his freedom; he's ready to change places and the conditions imposed on him. — Mesa Selimovic

I'm talking about equalizing the pressure between outer actions and events which are shattering and devastating to us and then the place where we recompose and reconstruct ourselves, where we finally achieve what Jung called the second birth. The second birth is the one that you can make, and the discovery of that to me was always a great relief. As long as we expect the changes to come only from the outside or from action outside or from political systems, then we are bound to feel helpless, to feel sometimes that reality is bigger and stronger than we are. But if suddenly we begin to feel that there is one person we can change, simultaneously we change many people around us. And as a writer I suddenly discovered the enormous radius of influence that one person can have. — Anais Nin

It is a proud moment when you can define a problem and make a commitment and begin to see a groundswell of activity towards addressing what has the potential to change the life trajectory of millions of kids. — Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey

Exercise 1: Guarding the Prayer
Once we are performing the five obligatory prayers with regularity, then it is certainly worth our efforts to begin increasing extra prayers- especially the late-night prayers (tahajjud). Late-night prayer is one of the defining qualities of a salih (righteous) person, also called a wali (friend of Allah). Regarding late-night prayers, Fudayl b. 'Iyyad said that if a man was unable to do them, it was due to his wrong actions during the day. May Allah make us befitting to stand before Him, here and in the hereafter.
Agenda to Change our Condition, Hamza Yusuf & Zaid Shakir, S. 46 — Hamza Yusuf

So attitude is something we should constantly do an internal check-up on--and make adjustments. The beautiful thing about an attitude change can be likened to the words 'Cut!"and 'Action!'. If the take was horrible, a new reality can begin with the next take when they call "Action!' just moments later."
"...if you realize that you cannot change your attitude--if you come to the conclusion you don't even care if you change your attitude--if you find yourself unable to jump-start any change in your attitude, you've got a serious problem and you should seek help. — Robby Benson

Proponents of the "we're all one race," swill took another hit recently when scientists revealed that bananas share about 50% of the DNA of humans (I kid you not). This is 10% more than what we share with earthworms. Add this information to the previous revelation that humans and chimps are 98.4% the same genetically, and you begin to see the problem for the we're all one race crowd - our present ignorant flat worlders. The reason this is a hit for the all one race crackpots is because it is just a further indication that nature works with minor changes to make major differences. In fact, there are no "tiny" changes in nature at the DNA level of existence. Just a minor change here or there makes a totally different animal or plant. — H. Millard

It only takes one person to make a change ... Let it begin with you. — Joyce Thompson

We have, as a nation, made choices that by all reasonable expectations should have put us in harm's way. There is little doubt that we continue to make choices that are likely to make the danger even greater. And yet, by dint of an accident of geography and economics, we have so far been spared the worst consequences of our actions. And even as those consequences begin to take hold in other places, here, in the parts of America where most of us live, at least for the moment, we can hear the winds roaring over our heads like that coal train, but somehow the worst of the danger still seems removed. What is our responsibility? (164) — Seamus McGraw

There is something charming and peculiar about a beginning. You feel it, like the change of seasons, from winter to spring, from spring to summer. You feel it; the new blood pumping inside your veins. You feel it; a thousand butterflies fluttering around your fingers to help you fly. You feel it; on your lips, when you smile at the absurdities of life that suddenly make perfect sense.
You smile... Because in every beginning, there is a rebirth. Because in every beginning, there is a layer of you that you just discovered. A layer you forgot was buried in you all this time. You smile because you are reminded of the immensity of fate. You smile because suddenly you feel so small and you like it.
So let's begin my dear. This life is beautiful. — Malak El Halabi

Change your thoughts, change your life. - LAO TZU When I was fighting depression, I remember hearing this expression and not understanding it at first. When I decided to implement it in my life, a whole new world opened up for me. Change the negative, self-loathing thoughts to positive, self-affirming ones. When you're positive about yourself and everything around you, you begin to see the world in a different light. Your life today is what you make of it. Goal: Be mindful of the tone of your thoughts. — Demi Lovato

It is not unnatural nor should it overly concern you that you feel the need for a change. The mistake most people make when they begin to feel this way is to ignore the voice that is telling them to stop and listen. — Bob Buford

And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this
letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.
Books aren't just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable
but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Be an initiator of change. Keep improving ... To change is to improve; to become excellent is to keep improving often! Don't give up; people who make it in life are people who keep improving often and often! — Israelmore Ayivor