Can't Change Quotes & Sayings

I want to be able to look back and say, 'I've done everything I can, and I was successful.' I don't want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I'd like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along. — Michael Phelps

Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. — Joshua Fields Millburn

I don't believe that the science is settled on man-made climate change. And so - while I live in Colorado - you see where I live. I love the environment. And - and I want to make sure we do everything we can to protect the environment. I don't want government to put artificial standards on us. — Ken Buck

You can read the Bible, and should, but until you study it, it doesn't come alive for you and teach you a lasting lesson.

Take time.
Study God's Word.
It will change you. — Gail Davis

It's never too late to start eating well. A good diet can reverse many of those conditions as well. In short: change the way you eat and you can transform your health for the better. — T. Colin Campbell

He disowned me," I murmured. "Kicked me out and told me to come back when I changed my choice."
"He seriously used those words? That it was a choice?"
I nodded.
"You can't change it. Your sexuality is like your DNA. You can't cut off your finger so it's no longer there, because it is you. You're born with it - you just discover it when you mature. — Shaye Evans

You can't change people by removing something. You must create a void and then fill it ... — Richard Bandler

Without change and the occasional struggle, we can't learn or grow. — Scott Berkun

It takes a long time for a heart to heal. The next time passion comes along you won't be so eager to respond. Love and pain go hand in hand and it can change a person forever. — Kate Mathis

It's not real. Love is a product of habit and routine. If you break that habit and change those routines, the person you've loved and lost and can't live without suddenly becomes an easy memory to file in the back of your mind . In other words, love isn't a heart condition. It's not even an emotional one. It's just a four-letter word we use when we want to control someone else and ruin their life if we ever decide to walk out on them — Morgan Parker

Magic is a two-way process: you use it to change yourself and in return, it changes you. Letting yourself enter a magical reality is not about creating an enclave of magic beyond your everyday life, but of allowing magic in- allowing for the intrusion of the weird, the irrational, the things you can't explain, yet are undeniably real. — Phil Hine

You can't stop the future You can't rewind the past The only way to learn the secret ... is to press play. — Jay Asher

Every sailor knows that you can't sail a ship that isn't moving forward, strong leaders understand that to change direction, you first have to create forward progress. — John C. Maxwell

My faith has helped me to adjust to life whether I was a small farm boy, a submarine officer, governor, president or an ex-president. I've tried to remember the teaching that we have to accommodate change we can't control in our lives, whether it's disappointment, sorrow, loss or failure, while simultaneously clinging to principles that never change. — Jimmy Carter

Radicals often suspect beauty of corruption. Uptight fuckers though they sometimes are, they're right in one thing: art alone cannot change the world. Pens can't take on swords, let alone Predator drones. But as disappointment and violence spread, the antidote is a generosity that the best art can still inspire.

Art is hope against cynicism, creation against entropy. To make art is an act of both love and defiance. Though I'm a cynic, I believe these things are all we have. — Molly Crabapple

And I don't believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I'll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will you be. — Alice Walker

That's life and you can't change anything, you know. — Irina Slutskaya

If a measurement matters at all, it is because it must have some conceivable effect on decisions and behaviour. If we can't identify a decision that could be affected by a proposed measurement and how it could change those decisions, then the measurement simply has no value — Douglas W. Hubbard

When you want to change things, you can't please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren't making enough progress. — Sheryl Sandberg

If you can't change it, make it work! — Yvette Wilson Bentley

So what have I learned that is helpful? Well, if you are white, like I am, you can't get rid of the privilege you have, but you can use it for good. Don't say I don't even notice race! like it's a positive thing. Instead, recognize that differences between people make it harder for some to cross a finish line, and create fair paths to success for everyone that accommodate those differences. Educate yourself. If you think someone's voice is being ignored, tell others to listen. If your friend makes a racist joke, call him out on it, instead of just going along with it. If the two former skinheads I met can have such a complete change of heart, I feel confident that ordinary people can, too. — Jodi Picoult

The thing is done; it can't be undone. How can one go back and change a moment passed? Even a moment that should never have come. I fear with the deed I have lost not only my virtue but my life as well. For of all life's betrayers, the heart is the worst. It flutters with joyful anticipation, leading down paths better untrod. Now that I know my heart, I must never follow it again. — Kristen Heitzmann

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

If someone steals your password, you can change it. But if someone steals your thumbprint, you can't get a new thumb. The failure modes are very different. — Bruce Schneier

I think what breaks people is not adversity; what breaks people is thinking that tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday. That's what's numbing - if you think you can't change, you can't be better. And I didn't like that. — William J. Clinton

As much as you might hate me, you can't change the fact that I know you, Lily. And no matter how many times you say you're fine and everything is good, you should remember that I know when you're lying. — Rachel Spanswick

You will ask me, after this, why, I didn't tell you this before. It is because I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free. — Jodi Picoult

You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you can make up a new one. — Sarah Addison Allen

In a fairy tale, the story can't be altered. The prince and princess will never have a fight. You'll never hear the queen raise her voice. No on ever gets sick; no one ever gets hurt. Maybe love is only safe in places where it can't change. — Jodi Picoult

Your words can change the course of your life, don't be afraid. — Annisa Swanson

And yet ... marriage seems to be the worst thing to happen to me. Though there are days I would argue that that wasn't true at all, and that the worst thing to happen to me is Nick Hudson. Not that picking one definitive answer would change the outcome. Nothing can change that now. Nothing dead can be brought back to life, literally or otherwise. — Crystal Cierlak

Love is messy. If you really love someone, you can't avoid the pain. People die, people leave, things change, but sometimes it all works — Danielle Steel

I realize that in everything I was saying, that underneath my words was essentially, "why can't we be less judgemental and more like me." Which is judgemental and arrogant, to try and change somebody else's perspective just so that the world can seem better for you. It's important that we have these contrasts in life - nothing was ever created by being the same. — Simon Amstell

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, than at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish t were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow. I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it. — Margaret Atwood

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For indeed that's all who ever have. — Margaret Mead

My method seems to change to everything, especially when you get older. You have more of a resonance to be able to grab to. When you're younger, you have these big boundaries because you don't know how to get you to where you are. When you get older, you have a few tricks that you can pull off. — Jason Patric

You can't change anything unless you can discard part of yourself too. To surpass monsters, you must be willing to abandon your humanity
- Armin Arlet — Hajime Isayama

We are often wrong about the past, but at least with the past you can change your thinking. We can't do that with the future. — Chuck Klosterman

This is life. Our bodies change. Our minds change. Our hearts change. Things are always evolving. I hope we can be supportive of each other and try to really have each other's backs, especially when we don't know the whole story. — Emma Stone

Grandmere says she can't get over the change in me. She says I seem taller. And you know maybe I am. She thinks it's because I'm wearing another one of Sebastiano's original creations, designed just for me,just like the dress that was supposed to make Michael see me as more than just his little sister's best friend ... except that it turned out he already did. But I know that's not it. And it isn't love, either. Well, not entirely. I'll tell you what it is: self-actualization. That and the fact that it turns out I'm really a princess, after all. I must be, because guess what? I'm living happily ever after. — Meg Cabot

You can't begin to change your life while hiding in the shadows of another. Sooner or later, you have to stand strong and accept the light in order to unleash your magic. ~ Pink Pearl the Moluccan — Jes Fuhrmann

forget about it; if today never becomes a yesterday, at least you can make peace with today. What already happened we can't change, but we can change what happens next! — Aleta Williams

The A-B-C's of Living Life's Purpose: A=Accept all things you can't change. B=Be Grateful for all that you have. C=Constantly create progress towards to your goals & dreams. — Hal Elrod

You can't rush the progression of a person. It has to be done in their own time. You can push a person to change, but the only time the change will stick is when it's something they want to achieve on their own. — Belle Aurora

We all have things that we regret, thinks we wish we could change, but we can't dwell on them. — Julie Kagawa

Organizations can't change their culture unless individual employees change their behavior - and changing behavior is hard. — Keith Ferrazzi

If you don't have a narrative, just make one up. You can always change it when you have more clarity. Any narrative beats no narrative. - L. R. W. Lee — L.R.W. Lee

Even if you Can't Change the World, you Can Change Individuals — Dan Howell

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt

I'd really like to change the world and save it from the mess it's in. I'm so weak, I'm so thin, I want to fly, but I can't even swim. — Ray Davies

You didn't like him, did you, Dad?"
"It wasn't that I didn't like him," my dad says slowly. "It was just that he lives in a completely different world, and I worried that he didn't really approve of you the way you are, that he was trying to change you into something else."
God, I never realized my dad was that perceptive..
"You see, the thing is," he says after we've both sat for a while in the sunshine, "the thing is that love is really the most important thing. I know it's hard for you to see it now" - he chuckles quietly- "but when I first laid eyes on your mother I thought she was fantastic, and I've never stopped loving her, not for a second. Oh yes, we've had our rough patches, and she can be a bit of an old battle-ax at times, but I still love her. That in-love feeling at the beginning settles down into a different, familiar sort of love, but it has to be there right from the start, otherwise it just won't work. — Jane Green

If you can't talk about it, you can't change it. — Matt L. Rawlins

Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed. — Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

Like Nadia, I wrestled with the evangelical tradition in which I was raised, often ungracefully. At times I've tried to wring the waters of my first baptism out of my clothes, shake them out of my hair, and ask for a do-over in some other community where they ordain women, vote for Democrats, and believe in evolution. But Jesus has this odd habit of allowing ordinary, screwed-up people to introduce him, and so it was ordinary, screwed-up people who first told me I was a beloved child of God, who first called me a Christian. I don't know where my story of faith will take me, but it will always begin here. That much can never change. — Rachel Held Evans

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference. Viveca comes downstairs first and heads into the — Wally Lamb

Travel is similar to therapy. You can go to the best psychologist in the world for ten years. If you don't feel like actively shifting anything in your life, there is nothing that person can do to change you. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The only way to think clearly is to know that you can't change someone else but you can change you. — Anonymous

If a man's heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can't win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds. They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly. — Dale Carnegie

Go for it, while you can. I know you have it in you. And I can't promise you'll get everything you want, but I can promise nothing will change if you don't try. — J.M. Darhower

I had crossed fifty years of my life, and come across uncountable females as son, husband, father, friend in my life. Coming across several women I carefully studied most of them, and feels that I got master knowing female. But every time when my heart comes across to a female, my all knowledge on female goes to a vain. What they want? , What are they looking for? When their mind changes? When their priority changes? No one knows, in a minute they use to change decisions, if someone ask, they says it's a little thing. They never think, little things makes big or if they can't stick on little things how they can stand in important decisions. They never show they are weak, but every time they are compromising themselves. It's their big heart but impacting every around. They always think they can do anything by doing nothing. — Nutan Bajracharya

My father's generation's crisis was fighting fascism. Ours is fighting climate change. It is much harder because you can't see it, it is not an obvious threat. But the solution is in our hands. — Nicholas Stern

Meaning can't change from person to person, and still be true — Denis Johnson

Just because you've had one or two of those games, you can't really go back to the next practice and change everything. That's the most important thing in those situations that you don't think too much, you don't try to change too much because then you're going to be in deep trouble, that's what I think. It's all about keep working on what's been successful for you and keep believing what you're doing is the right thing. — Jonas Gustavsson

I won't get killed,' Rose protested.
Is that a promise?' Fish asked dryly, stirring his tea. 'If you break your word, I'll never believe you again.'
Rose shook her head at him. 'How can you even taste your tea if you put that much sugar in it?'
Don't change the subject. I don't want to be responsible for depriving the world of Rose Brier. Under no circumstances are you allowed to help us do anything more dangerous than ... change the oil in my car. — Regina Doman

It will change everything. We won't need governments and corporations. The very concepts our economic and social systems are based on: money, wealth, privilege, will be meaningless. What use is money when everyone can build everything they need?'...
'These are people who've spent their whole lives fighting their way to the top and you're just going to tell them that there is no top anymore?... it's you that doesn't understand: they only care about material things as status symbols, to show that they're better than everyone else, that they've beaten everyone else, that's what drives them. They'll never give that up. — K. Valisumbra

We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change. Lukewarm won't do. Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here. — Rumi

No outcome is certain, even when it seems so. Fates can change with the swing of a bat, or the flip of a switch, or the closing of a circuit.
It all came down to how far you dared to go to accomplish what the world thinks can't be done. — Neal Shusterman

I think that if you have a strong narrative, if the idea of the song can be boiled down to the basics, it won't change that much. — Suzanne Vega

Just because life is full of craziness doesn't mean you must go crazy. You can experience outer chaos and still find inner peace. Nothing even needs to change outside of you for you to find calm inside of you. This inner calm is available at all times. Just breathe. — Karen Salmansohn

Change what you can if it needs
changing, but learn to live with what you can't change. — Robert Jordan

If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time. — Richard Lewontin

This is an important lesson to remember when you're having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won't feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can't feel real joy unless you've felt heartache. You can't have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can't know what it's like to feel holy until you know what it's like to feel really fucking evil. And you can't be birthed again until you've died. — Kelly Cutrone

If you're a salesman, you have to deal with yourself the way you are. Not how you'd like to be.
If you don't have what it takes, you can waste a lot of time asking yourself "How can I get what it takes?" The question you should be asking yourself is, "Is there something else that takes what I have to offer?" Because if there's something you can succeed at, just the way you are, you won't have to waste a lot of time trying to change yourself. Which you're never going to be able to do, anyway. — Helen DeWitt

God Will Change You Many plans are in a man's mind, but it is the Lord's purpose for him that will stand. PROVERBS 19:21 Even though you may still be operating in old habits, you still have hope of change, but you can't change yourself. God will change you, if you seek Him with your whole heart. Don't be in a hurry for God to finish working in your life. We want everything to be done instantly, but God is not interested in our schedule. The enemy may thwart your plans, but God's plans don't get thwarted, and He has a unique plan for you. Seek God's plan for your life. Stay on fire, red hot, zealous. Pursue His purpose for you with every ounce of energy you have. There is nothing in this world that is worth seeking more. — Joyce Meyer

So if you love me, let me go.
And run away before I know.
My heart is just too dark to care.
I can't destroy what isn't there.
Deliver me into my fate -
If I'm alone I cannot hate
I don't deserve to have you ...
My smile was taken long ago
If I can change I hope I never know — Slipknot

At some point we must achieve our identity -we can't be always in adolescence seeking who we are ... — John Geddes

Because I'm superior in other things. Help me, and I'll ... I'll fix your car out front. I'll change your tire."
That threw her off. "You're in a skirt"
"I'm offering you what I can. Manual labor in exchange for wisdoms."
"I don't believe you can do it," she said after several long moments.
I crossed my arms. "It's an eyesore."
"You have fifteen minutes."
"I only need ten."
Naturally Adian felt the need to "supervise" my work. "Are you going to get made if I tell you how hot this Is? — Richelle Mead

I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool. — John Gierach

Things change ... things happen ... things you can't even imagine when you're young and full of hope. — Judy Blume

The important thing to understand," he reached across the table to touch her hand, "is that there are things about ourselves that we can change and things about ourselves that we can't change. The key is to know the difference. — Debra Holland

Every turning point in a person's life isn't reached by luck, they choose to be successful, they know what it takes to be there, they can do what is expected of them to do, they do not show trepidation about the requirements needed to be on top — Michael Bassey Johnson

I don't know if there's any change more significant that a human being can make than that of a woman becoming a mother. There's no change more dramatic. — Eric Dane

The real excitement of being a girl - of being, that is, a woman in embryo - was that life was such a wonderful gamble. You didn't know what was going to happen to you. That was what made being a woman so exciting. No worry about what you should be or do - Biology would decide. You were waiting for The Man, and when the man came, he would change your entire life, you can say what you like, that is an exciting point of view to hold at the threshold of life. — Agatha Christie

Everyone has a past, but that's just it
it's in the past. You can learn from it, but you can't change it. — Nicholas Sparks

Time allows change to take place and the very evolution of the universe is what requires some conception of time. Mathematically can we write down a universe that doesn't have time? Sure. Do we think that would be realised in the larger reality that is out there? None of us take that possibility seriously. — Brian Greene

I soon found out you can't change the world. The best you can do is to learn to live with it. — Henry Miller

mong the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying. — Wilkie Collins

Don't waste your time hating me; you can't change me. Instead, hate your impotent life; THAT you can change. — Steve Maraboli

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read. — Rodman Philbrick

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that has nothing to do with you, This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones. — Haruki Murakami

You can't change the past, you know? You can't change who you were, but you can change who you're going to be. — Rose Christo

Be yourself! Don't be somebody! Be humble to authority, but be assertive! Mind your solemn duty and responsibility to the Supreme God, for you shall give account to Him in the end! You were created uniquely, mind your mind! Mind the things that can change your mindset, and mind people! People are always alert to do all things possible to change your mind set. They wish you become the reason for their joy even if it causes you an inner pain! They wish you halt a purposeful journey. They wish you look and see, hear and listen, think and act, as they do! Their joy is to see you being like them, and their sorrow and envy is to see you living your true you! Be yourself! If only you living your true you please God, no problem exists! Just be yourself and mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

All men CAN change, but that doesn't mean that all men WILL change. There's only one woman whom we will change for. If a man is not willing to change, it means that you aren't the one. — Steve Harvey

You can't hope for a better result as a campaigner than to have the prime minister announce a major policy change within 48 hours of your documentary. — Heather Brooke

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol

It's not about knowin where you are. It's about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. Or anybody's. You don't start over. That's what it's about. Ever step you take is forever. You can't make it go away. None of it. You understand what I'm sayin?
You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I don't know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who's layin there? — Cormac McCarthy

Dead isn't angels or ghosts. It's a physical state of breakdown, a change in all those carbon atoms that create the temporary house of a body
so that they can return to their most elemental stage. — Jodi Picoult

One good thing about the past is that you can't change it. So there's no reason to go back. It's there. It is what it is. The only thing you can change is right now and what's happening next. — Neil Young