Change For Improvement Quotes & Sayings

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience. — George Santayana

It is easy to prescribe improvement for others; it is easy to organize something, to institutionalize this or that, to pass laws, multiply bureaucratic agencies, form pressure groups, start revolutions, change forms of government, tinker at political theory. The fact that these expedients have been tried unsuccessfully in every conceivable combination for 6,000 years has not noticeably impaired a credulous unintelligent willingness to keep on trying them again and again. — Albert J. Nock

The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the 'capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must mean, public non-profit initiative, even if only in redistributing private accumulation. Public decisions aimed at collective social improvement from which all human lives should gain. That is the basis of progressive policy - not maximising economic growth and personal incomes. Nowhere will this be more important than in tackling the greatest problem facing us this century, the environmental crisis. Whatever ideological logo we choose for it, it will mean a major shift away from the free market and towards public action, a bigger shift than the British government has yet envisaged. And, given the acuteness of the economic crisis, probably a fairly rapid shift. Time is not on our side. — Eric Hobsbawm

Before any change for the better can take place, a level of understanding is always needed; because without understanding we tend to fall back on the automatic responses and reactions that we have built up over our lives. — Gyalwa Dokhampa

Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system - learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention - may radically transform one's life. — Sam Harris

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

You can't change the road you traveled from a child, but you can certainly take a different road for the journey into your future. — Shamarion Whitaker

When you depersonalize abrasive behavior and see it as a call for help you become a catalyst for the best kind of change. — Marilyn Suttle

Improvement is always on the schedule for tomorrow. Change is always taking place some time in the future. It's human nature. — Dan Pearce

Our own private intuition is the catalyst for self-improvement and self-realization, because when it comes to making deep and lasting changes in one's personal life, it is only subjective experience, not facts, that registers as real. — Penney Peirce

The competitive instinct is what I think drives organizations and people to become better and better. It can promote change toward progress and development, which is good for everybody. It can be the motivating force behind improvement in our social well-being that is far beyond anything we might have imagined on our own. — Lee R. Raymond

Libraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent. Technology will not change that, for even in the starchiest heyday of Victorian self-improvement, libraries were intended to be meeting places of the mind, recreational as well as educational. — Ben Macintyre

God of love, whose gospel is peace.

We pray that through your divine love, that peace would come.
Together we say, May Peace Prevail on earth.
In saying this we also know that we are to be your hands and feet in this world.
Therefore, loving God, enable us to be the change we wish to see in the world around us.
Let us be witnesses for peace and let our peace testimony have an impact on the whole world.
All for your glory and the improvement of the human race.

In the name of our Sweet Prince of Peace,

Amen — David Holdsworth

The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad. — Martin Seligman

For spiritual change, we need to see and understand ourselves. What sees is consciousness, it is what perceives, and is essentially what we are. To understand ourselves we need to look within and study how we think and feel, and doing that is called self-observation. — Belsebuub

Just as there is no technical improvement that would not hurt someone, so there is no change in public taste or morals, even for the better, that would not hurt someone. — Henry Hazlitt

Have you realized that today is the tomorrow you talked about yesterday? It is your responsibility to change your life for the better. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

There's a whole list of things I would probably change about myself. For example, I'm always trying to lose fifteen pounds. But I never need to be skinny. I don't want to be skinny. I'm constantly in a state of self-improvement but I don't beat myself up over it. — Mindy Kaling

It's important to air your concerns and fears with someone you trust. When you're honest about how you can change and grow, and where your weaknesses are, then you open the door for improvement and change. — Matt Dillon

Mma Ramotswe had heard of the operation's success. She too had been going over various possibilities; in particular she had been thinking of the threat posed by the aunt. Mma Ramotswe had gone out of her way to reassure her, but when the other woman had simply brushed her off she realised that this was one of those people with whom there simply could be no dealing. They were few and far between, thankfully, but when you encountered one of them it was best just to recognise what you were up against, rather than to hope for some miraculous change of mind, some Road to Damascus improvement. — Alexander McCall Smith

I don't just sit around hopin for nothing. I do shit. It's the 'hope' part that fucks that line all up. You should change it to somethin like, 'We fight for better things,' or 'We work for better things.' Or 'We plan for better things.' That's what's wrong with this city; it ain't about the mayor. Too many people busy hoping shit will get better to actually figure out a way to make shit better. — Angela Flournoy

We usually need to have pain, trial or challenge to be motivated to learn or change. Learning in the midst of ease and prosperity comes from the pure inner soul's inspired desire for improvement. — Rand Olson

Oh, Lord! don't I know it's difficult! ... Don't I know that perhaps it's impossible! But it's the only way to do it. Therefore, I say, let's try to get it done. And everybody says, 'difficult, difficult,' and nobody lifts a finger to try. And the only real difficulty is that everybody for one reason or another says that it's difficult. It's against human nature. Granted! Every decent thing is. It's socialism. Who cares? — H.G.Wells

One of the most valuable gifts that a person can give (or receive) is a productive mentality. It is with a productive mentality that people change their lives for the better, in ways profound. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Improve performance through process improvements introduced with minimal resistance. Deliver with high quality. Deliver a predictable lead time by controlling the quantity of work-in-progress. Give team members a better life through an improved work/life balance. Provide slack in the system by balancing demand against throughput. Provide a simple prioritization mechanism that delays commitment and keeps options open. Provide a transparent scheme for seeing improvement opportunities, thereby enabling change to a more collaborative culture that encourages continuous improvement. Strive for a process that enables predictable results, business agility, good governance, and the development of what the Software Engineering Institute calls a high-maturity organization. — David J. Anderson

Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We often think of change and improvement coming from the outside in rather than from the inside out. Even if we recognize the need for change within, we usually think in terms of learning new skills, rather than showing more integrity to basic principles. But significant breakthroughs often represent internal breaks with traditional ways of thinking. I refer to these as paradigm — Stephen R. Covey

A popular perception that political news is boring is no minor issue; for when news fails to harness the curiosity and attention of a mass audience through its presentational techniques, a society becomes dangerously unable to grapple with its own dilemmas and therefore to marshal the popular will to change and improve itself. — Alain De Botton

To get change, you must first pay for it. — Timothy Joshua

The number one element on the list for changing and improving one's lifestyle is definitely in the area of health for most people. Good health paves the way for even more awesomeness to happen all-the-way-around. — Sereda Aleta Dailey

Change plus innovation equals progress! — Israelmore Ayivor

Confinement is not a part of your destiny. Your life purpose is to take the totality of your negative experiences, roll them up into one, and use them positively to lay the foundation for your destiny. Confinement is not a part of your destiny. Your life purpose is to take the totality of your negative experiences, roll them up into one, and use them positively to lay the foundation for your destiny. — B.L. Brown

Darren Hardy has written a new bible for the self-improvement space. If you are looking for the real deal-a real program, with real tools that can change your life and make your dreams a reality-The Compound Effect is it! I plan to use this book to go back and look at what I need to again work on in my own life! Buy ten copies, one for yourself and nine more for those you love, and pass them out now-those who get it will thank you! — David Bach

Just as soon as I meet and learn to love a friend we must part and go our separate ways, never to meet on quite the same ground again. For, disguise the fact as we will, when friends, even the closest-and perhaps the more so on account of that very closeness-meet again after a separation there is always a chill, lesser or greater, of change. Neither finds the other quite the same. This is only natural. Human nature is ever growing or retrograding-never stationary. But still, with all our philosophy who of us can repress a little feeling of bewildered disappointment when we realize that our friend is not and never can be just the same as before-even although the change may be an improvement? — L.M. Montgomery

Naive people always trying to blame others for their constant heartbreak & failed relationships instead of looking in the mirror & re-evaluating themselves. It's YOU that needs to change. — David Reeves

Sometimes the 'day' you're dreaming for never comes. Take control of your future and start now. — Auliq Ice

For many people, myself included, the end of the world is happening all the time! It is a form of criticality that paradoxically gives us hope for change and improvement. — Douglas Coupland

Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Self-realization is largely a matter of achieving a person's formative personality definition. People whom lack self-realization oftentimes fail to integrate their desired personality traits into all phases of their life including social life, family life, and work life. In order to achieve satisfaction with oneself, a person must know what they wish for, know how to go about achieving their goals, be capable of recognizing where they now stand, and understand how they must change in order to attain their ultimate visage. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Those who use what is called a growth mindset believe that people can change, that success is something to be achieved. Maybe it's not the case that any person can be anything, but it is still true that within certain parameters, people can learn and grow. For those who have a growth mindset, failures may sting but they are also viewed as opportunities for improvement and change. — Meg Jay

Well over half of the time you spend working on a project (on the order of 70 percent) is spent thinking, and no tool, no matter how advanced, can think for you. Consequently, even if a tool did everything except the thinking for you - if it wrote 100 percent of the code, wrote 100 percent of the documentation, did 100 percent of the testing, burned the CD-ROMs, put them in boxes, and mailed them to your customers - the best you could hope for would be a 30 percent improvement in productivity. In order to do better than that, you have to change the way you think. — Fred Brooks

We may believe that anxiety and fear don't concern us because we avoid experiencing them. We may keep the scope of our lives narrow and familiar, opting for sameness and safety. We may not even know that we are scared of success, failure, rejection, criticism, conflict, competition, intimacy, or adventure, because we rarely test the limits of our competence and creativity. We avoid anxiety by avoiding risk and change. Our challenge: To be willing to become more anxious, via embracing new situations and stepping more fully into our lives. — Harriet Lerner

All change is change for the better. There is no such thing as "change for the worse." Change is the process of Life Itself, and that process could be called by the name 'evolution.' And evolution moves in only one direction: forward, and toward improvement. — Neale Donald Walsch

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable? — Seth Godin

Liberate yourself from unconstructive beliefs forced upon you by others for imprisonment sake. Allow into this space a new-fangled reality which warrant viewpoints increasing a new understanding. — Michaelson Williams

Sometimes you can grow more in a shorter amount of time with the right company than years of soul-searching alone, or by living the same patterns you've lived for your entire life. — A.J. Darkholme

People interested in change and personal development need larger and larger environments in which to live. Their views expand. Their perspectives broaden. Their interests change. They seek bigger challenges. And they need people in their lives who will make room for their growth. — Steve Goodier

Without repentance, there is no real progress or improvement in life. Pretending there is no sin does not lessen its burden and pain. Suffering for sin does not by itself change anything for the better. Only repentance leads to the sunlit uplands ofa better life. — D. Todd Christofferson

Every managerial act must be seen as an unequivocal support for urgency in pursuit of constant testing, change, and improvement. — Tom Peters

Formerly irreconcilable enemies, morality and happiness have fused; today, it is being unhappy that is immoral; the superego has moved into the citadel of felicity and governs it with an iron hand. The end of culpability comes at the price of endless torment. Pleasure is no longer a promise but a problem. The idea of full satisfaction has replaced that of constraint, and it has in turn become a requirement that full satisfaction be achieved. Each of us is responsible for being in good shape, in a good mood, and no longer has to renounce anything; instead, we have to adapt to a process of improvement that rejects any resistance to change. Order has ceased to condemn us or deprive us; now it shows us, with maternal solicitude, how to fulfill ourselves. — Pascal Bruckner

Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You'll know that you're getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done. — Max McKeown

Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable. — William Pollard

The difference between change and improvement is very easy to understand: change is temporary and improvement is permanent. Change is for a temporary feeling one may have due to circumstances. Improvement means to permanently change oneself in the name of ones self. Change only makes you stronger when it's an improvement from your current situation. — Mohammad Salman B. Sanayon

Until you know how to change yourself for the better, you cannot change others. — Debasish Mridha

An Appreciative inquiry Conversation is the catalyst for strengths based innovation. — Tony Dovale

Perhaps teachers and parents should add this to their list of admonitions and lessons: "Warning: contents of this society have been known to create feelings of stress and alienation; provoke wars, homicides, and suicides; and pollute the habitat you need for survival. Most of what we tell you, you should question. You can improve it. This is, really, just the best we have been able to do up until now and it could be that improvement will actually overturn much of what we now accept and advocate. Learn about your culture and your place in it, but do not cling too tightly to it. What we're teaching you probably needs to change, and soon. — Ron Davison

You won't ever get ahead if you keep feeling sorry for yourself. You must stop all the negative talk and start thinking positive. You have a lot of potential but your life won't change until you change how you think. — Michele Woolley

If you change your way of thinking about failure, you can transform your weaknesses into strengths & realize opportunities for growth. — Tanya Masse

If I knew your thoughts, I would know what you are, for your thoughts make you who you are. By changing our thoughts, we can change our lives. — Dale Carnnegie

What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements. — Anais Nin

Blame is such a self-defeating choice. It renders one helpless, putting any solution well out of reach, for we rarely can change others. Consider this, a solution well within your reach, someone you can surely change: Yourself. — Russell Kyle

Reading, writing, and personal introspection will not protect us from hardship and suffering, but they might introduce us to critical thinking and expose us to what is good in humankind and beautiful in the world that we share with all of nature. Contemplative thought, especially that supplemented with reading literature and attempting to write our own replies to the echoing voices of writers whom preceded us provide us with the potentiality for change, the possibility of personal illumination that enables us to experience a heighted quality of life. — Kilroy J. Oldster