Quotes & Sayings About Change Agents

The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man. — Thomas Jefferson

To me, feminism in literature deals with the female characters being in some way central to the thematic concerns of the book, or that they are agents of change to some degree. In other words, the lens is focused deeply and intensely on the female characters and doesn't waver, which allows for a glimpse into the rich inner lives of the characters. — Laurie Foos

If you want to be an agent of change, it starts with you and what you're made of. — Michael J. Fox

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others. — Stephen Covey

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change. — Warren G. Bennis

TED Women isn't championing a cause; it's surfacing and sharing some of the most important ideas of our time. Our focus is on women as change agents, innovators and idea champions, and I think people will be both inspired and surprised by the program. We're exploring some fascinating territory! — Pat Mitchell

In fact, technology in, and of, itself does not cause particular kinds of change. It is, essentially, an enabling or facilitating agent. It makes possible new structures, new organizational and geographical arrangements of economic activities, new products and new processes, while not making particular, outcomes inevitable. — Peter Dicken

[I am a co - creator], an active agent in this universe who makes things happen. If I want the world to change, I have to change it. — Danah Zohar

Effective leaders of change must serve equally as agents of change and protectors of continuity. — Samuel Wilson

Jumping genes are fundamental because they're agents of change. Everybody knows that organisms evolve. What makes them evolve is that their genes are dynamic and in motion. A familiar example is the stripe-y corn - called Indian corn - that you buy in the fall. — Nina Fedoroff

Business is society's change agent. — Peter Drucker

What teachers do actually matters. Their ideas count. They are agents for change in our schools. — Denny Taylor

If you want to be a change agent, you have to ready to fail. — Robert Reich

Wealth from trade was the mainspring of Western material advance; the visible agents of change were great guns. These came of age in Europe in the 15th century. On land their potency in reducing castle walls favoured central over local power, since in general only monarchs could afford siege-trains; so nation-states were consolidated and extended into great territorial empires. At sea, guns transformed sailing ships into mobile castles virtually impregnable to opponents who lacked equally powerful ordnance. With the ocean-going gunned warship, western Europe began to extend around the globe. — Peter Padfield

When I say women are the agents of change, I really should say women and girls. — Jane Fonda

If most of the people in the country believe that America is generally fair and decent, it becomes more difficult for Saul Alinsky types to recruit change agents and for those on the Far Left to undermine our Constitution. Hence the constant bad-mouthing of our nation to impressionable young people, preparing them to be ripe for manipulation at the appropriate time. — Ben Carson

I have always thought that librarians are a little bit like doctors, travel agents and professors all rolled into one. We all know that a great story can lift spirits, take you anywhere in the world you want to go and in any time period to boot, and the lessons you learn from a good book can buoy your own convictions and even change your life. — Dorothea Benton Frank

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go. — Alain De Botton

I believe that all students, when asked to be accountable for their actions and to be socially aware citizens, will become agents for change! — Erin Gruwell

Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies. — Kofi Annan

The type of librarians who are thriving most consistently in the digital era are those who have found a way to operate as a node in a network of libraries and librarians. They are agents of change, actively creating the future instead of constantly reacting to it - — John Palfrey

It's important to underscore this overriding fact: women are not just victims of conflict-they are agents of peace and agents of change. — Hillary Clinton

I'm a change agent. And what we're beginning to see is a lot of the establish people, one more time, trying to stop me. — John Kasich

In a nation of millions and a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity. — Joyce Meyer

And even if we make good plans based on the best information available at the time and people do exactly what we plan, the effects of our actions may not be the ones we wanted because the environment is nonlinear and hence is fundamentally unpredictable. As time passes the situation will change, chance events will occur, other agents such as customers or competitors will take actions of their own, and we will find that what we do is only one factor among several which create a new situation. — Stephen Bungay

It is 100 years since John Dewey began arguing for the kind of change that would move schools away from authoritarian classrooms with abstract notions to environments in which learning is achieved through experimentation, practice and exposure to the real world. I, for one, believe the computer makes Dewey's vision far more accessible epistemologically. It also makes it politically more likely to happen, for where Dewey had nothing but philosophical arguments, the present day movement for change has an army of agents. The ultimate pressure for the change will be child power. (Papert, 1996) — Anonymous

I kept writing short stories and sending out my manuscript, and it kept coming back like a bad penny. It was rejected all over town, quite often in very complimentary terms, but rejected nonetheless. Agents would return it saying that they loved it but didn't think they could sell it, or they would ask if I could change the collection into linked stories. — Debra Dean

I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society. — Elise M. Boulding

The "non-profit" institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its "product" is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their "product" is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether. — Peter F. Drucker

Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end, they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools, techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals. — Simon Mainwaring

Sometimes agents were so influenced by one another that they lost track of their goal and did something else instead. In that sense, the program was very childlike, unpredictable and easily distracted. As one programmer put it - trying to program distributed intelligence is like telling a five year old kid to go to his room and change his clothes. He may do that, but he is equally likely to do something else and never return. — Michael Crichton

The most powerful thing is for women not just to be the beneficiaries of the change, but to be agents of it. — Blake Lively

Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them. — Noam Chomsky

Now, I have always believed that women are not victims; we are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace - all we need is a fighting chance. — Hillary Clinton

Resistance is never the agent of change. You have to embrace the actions that are going to get you closer to your goal. — Ali Vincent

America's greatest long-term influence on China comes from playing host to the thousands of students who come from China each year, some of the ablest Chinese scholars and scientists. They will be the most powerful agents for change in China. — Lee Kuan Yew

Real change agents comprise less than 10% of all business people. — Jack Welch

The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love. — Bruce D. Perry

Let me start off by saying that in 2000 I said, 'Vote for me. I'm an agent of change.' In 2004, I said, 'I'm not interested in change
I want to continue as president.' Every candidate has got to say 'change.' That's what the American people expect. — George W. Bush

We are in a position of financial and social power, and we could be agents of change in our society. Without pretension, I believe we could be a nice little gardener who takes care of the garden, and hopefully our neighbor will do the same. Then, maybe we'll achieve a better world. — Guy Laliberte

The Sister Fund supports spiritual women and their organizations, both grassroots activists for justice, and national and international social change agents. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

The creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change and on himself as an instrument for change. Otherwise, what are you creating for? If the world is perfectly all right the way it is, you have no place in it. The creative personality thinks of the world as a canvas for change and of himself as a divine agent of change. — Jacob Bronowski

To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent — Peter Drucker

I believe that the only true agents of change on a large scale, in this country or anywhere, are young people. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life. — Shelby Steele

You don't have to run away from life your whole life. You can really live. You can change. And you can be an agent of change. — Laura Dern

To work effectively as an agent of change in a pluralistic society, it is necessary to be able to connect with people different from oneself. — Beverly Daniel Tatum

A pinwheel also needs wind. And with our actions, and our intentions, we can be that wind. We have to be those agents of change for the young people and their families in our communities. — Josh Charles

Unless we as social change agents come from a certain kind of spirituality, we're likely to create more harm than good. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

A college education feeds an adolescent in one end and gets a young adult out the other. In the process of those four years that person has changed significantly, and you and I have been agents of that change ... what happens, in the course of what we do, is soul making. — Leroy S Rouner

Realizing that inequality is socially constructed empowers us to be agents of change. — Julia T. Wood

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change. — A.R. Ammons

Change Agents have a "learning wheel" in their mind. — Pearl Zhu

Although everyone wants to change the teacher, it's time for the agents of educational reform to change themselves. — Andy Hargreaves

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. — Ann Voskamp

Coaches are sales people and change agents. — Hugh McCutcheon

Hell yeah! Twitter was proof that leaderless self-organizing systems could be true agents of change. — Biz Stone

The customer service agents who accepted the defaults of Internet Explorer and Safari approached their job the same way. They stayed on script in sales calls and followed standard operating procedures for handling customer complaints. They saw their job descriptions as fixed, so when they were unhappy with their work, they started missing days, and eventually just quit. The employees who took the initiative to change their browsers to Firefox or Chrome approached their jobs differently. They looked for novel ways of selling to customers and addressing their concerns. When — Adam M. Grant

It's only when journalists understand the role they play in this propaganda, it's only when they realize they can't be both independent, honest journalists and agents of power, that things will begin to change. — John Pilger