Change To Improve Quotes & Sayings

My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve! — Marilyn Monroe

Change can be frightening, and the temptation is often to resist it. But change almost always provides opportunities - to learn new things, to rethink tired processes, and to improve the way we work. — Klaus Schwab

Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate ... — Clay Shirky

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

A person's integrity develops early in life. Once formed, it is difficult to alter, change, or improve. — Scott K. Edinger

If we habitually focus on how to improve things that are already great, can you see how this spirit can transform ourselves, our organizations, families and communities? — Tony Robbins

You can't change your beliefs as an act of will, in the way you can decide to improve your skills with chainsaw or keyboard. — Daniel C. Dennett

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it. — Wong Kar-Wai

But maybe efficiency isn't all it's held up to be. Maybe it's the inefficiencies and mistakes that give us the best impetus to change and grow and improve. — Mark Hodder

It is on my mind every hour of every day that I have 168 hours this week to improve my life. It is really up to me to be a good steward of this time to accomplish my goals and change my life this week. — Bob Cox

If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change. — David W. Earle

When I was training for the Chicago Marathon, I would eat a cup of cereal after an 18-mile long run, and then I'd have to get out the door with nothing but a granola bar in my hand. I can't change my busy schedule with my kids, but I can work harder to improve in this area. I think it's a part of training that most of us find difficult. — Summer Sanders

We must carefully examine change so that we are able to discard those aspects of change which would be detrimental to our way of life, and, at the same time, take advantage of those aspects of change which will enhance and improve our quality of life. — Alex Campbell

You cannot grow unless you are willing to change. You will never improve yourself if you cling to what used to be. — Leon Brown

[Writing] books is really fun because your "voice" is pretty undiluted. There is a very direct connection between yourself and your audience. You will have an editor, but their job is to help you clarify or improve your voice, not change it. — Liz Tuccillo

Wanting to change, to improve, a person's situation means offering him, for difficulties in which he is practiced and experienced, other difficulties that will find him perhaps even more bewildered. — Rainer Maria Rilke

We have to think and see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system, just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like, love, compassion, tolerance and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. — Dalai Lama

Of course, people should improve, and their unpleasant behavior should change, however trivial it appears to be. Yet, taking these relatively trivial actions into our own hearts would only ruin the happiness that we are all entitled to. — Bhikkhu Rahula

If you don't take risks, you won't be able to do anything. I was confident I could use my experience to change and improve the way Macau worked. — Lui Che Woo

We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we're doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we're doing. — Pema Chodron

I understand you, and I shall not attempt to make you change your mind. I am too old to want to improve the world. I have told you what I think, and that is all. I shall remain your friend even if you act contrary to my convictions, and I shall help you even if I disagree with you. — Milan Kundera

It cannot suffice to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions. It is necessary to change and improve our understanding of the true purpose of what we are and what we do in the world. Only such a new understanding will allow us to develop new models of behavior, new scales of values and goals, and thereby invest the global regulations, treaties and institutions with a new spirit and meaning. — Vaclav Havel

Resistless change, when powerless to improve, Can only mar. — Anne Enright

I studied history at university. My mutinous discontent recalls something I read there on the subject of revolutions. They do not happen, it was argued, when the oppressed class is being maximally ground down by misery, but, rather, when conditions improve. It is the slight relief of pressure which gives the downtrodden the chance to lift their heads out of the slime, to look about them. and become cognisant of the true circumstances of their lives. — Anna Lyndsey

If you want to have more, you have to become more.
For things to change, you have to change.
For things to get better, you have to become better.
If you improve, everything will improve for you.
If you grow, your money will grow; your relationships, your health, your business and every external effect will mirror that growth in equal correlation. — Jim Rohn

A book--a real book--is one choice, taken from a pile, opened and entered as its own singular, separate world. Once chosen, you are not holding the constant opportunity to alter or improve your choice, or simply change it just for the sake of restless change. You are there, now, without the relentless pressure of the fact that you could always be, and maybe you should be, maybe you'd be happier or more productive or different, doing something else. It's a choice I hope my kids will decide to make, often. — K.J. Dell'Antonia

Get to know yourself. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. Know also when you actually have thought through to the nature of the thing with which you are dealing and when you are not thinking at all ... Knowing yourself and knowing the facts, you can judge whether you can change the situation so it is more to your liking. If you cannot
or if you do not know how to improve on things
then discipline yourself to the adjustments that will be necessary. — Bernard Baruch

So, look at the world around you, and if you notice things that don't seem right - injustices, inefficiencies, or just oddities - investigate them further. Think about why and how those things might happen and what you could do to change them for the better. Test your ideas by trying new things, making more observations, refining your models, and repeating the process. And when you find something that works to explain or improve your situation, tell everyone about it, so we can all benefit. — Chad Orzel

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

Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom. — Barry Goldwater

It is said in the Upanishads: 'I am the Universe.' If you ask a hundred people as to how they find the world, they are all likely to give different answers. For some, the world is beautiful and the people are good, while for others, the world is extremely bad, and the people are treacherous and sinful. Why the same world is different for different people? It is so, because the outer world is the projection of our inner world. Therefore, the only way to improve the world outside is to improve the world within. While we may not have any control over the outside world, we can change our world within and thus change the world outside. — Awdhesh Singh

Testing by itself does not improve software quality. Test results are an indicator of quality, but in and of themselves, they don't improve it. Trying to improve software quality by increasing the amount of testing is like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself more often. What you eat before you step onto the scale determines how much you will weigh, and the software development techniques you use determine how many errors testing will find. If you want to lose weight, don't buy a new scale; change your diet. If you want to improve your software, don't test more; develop better. — Steve McConnell

change. They start by asking: In order to improve our — Rich Horwath

We all know that change is inevitable. It provides us with a challenge and an opportunity to grow and improve and to attract new members with new ideas. — Ron D. Burton

I never changed anything, except my socks and my underwear. And I never did anything to glorify myself or improve my lot. I took what came and did the best I could with it. — Robert Mitchum

An accident, a random change, in any delicate mechanism can hardly be expected to improve it. Poking a stick into the machinery of one's watch or one's radio set will seldom make it work better. — Theodosius Dobzhansky

But there's still so much you can do with technology to improve the customer experience. And that's the sense in which I believe it's still Day One, and that it's early in the day. If anything, the rate of change is accelerating. — Jeff Bezos

If you are hired to shake up the system, do it. No one will believe you're the boss until you do one or more of the following: 1. Add a new division; 2. Lop off a present department; 3. Add new people or reassign and reward present employees; 4. Get rid of deadwood; 5. Change the method of accounting; 6. Change lawyers, accountants, or other outside services; 7. Ask a lot of questions, and demand answers by a certain date; 8. Get in touch with key people in your industry or city and arrange personal meetings; 9. Improve working conditions; 10. Update present benefit plans. — Lois Wyse

Vhalla was discovering that the path to being the person she wanted to be had no end point. There would always be room for her to adapt, to change, and to improve. — Elise Kova

Who makes things up? Who tells the real story? We all turn our lives into stories. It is a defining characteristic of our species. We retell our experiences. We quickly learn what parts are interesting to our listeners and what parts lag, and we shape our narratives accordingly. It doesn't mean we aren't telling the truth; we've simply learned which parts to leave out. Every time we tell the story again, we don't go back to the original event and start from scratch, we go back to the last time we told the story. It's the story we shape and improve on, we don't change what happened. This is also a way we have of protecting ourselves. It would be too painful to relive a childhood illness or the death of your best friend every time you had to speak of it. By telling the story from the story, instead of from the actual events, we are able to distance ourselves from our suffering. It also gives us the chance to make the story something people can hear. — Ann Patchett

You have been "self-pitying" for long years now and things don't seem to improve. Just try a few days of good self-esteeming" and you'll see things taking a better shape! — Israelmore Ayivor

You're trying to help them ... that's a good thing. But you can't always count on seeing their gratitude," he said wanting to comfort her before he added a grain of salt. "You know what Tolstoy said ... if you are unhappy with your life, you can change it in two ways ... either improve the conditions you live in or improve your inner spiritual state. The first isn't always possible but the second is ... In the end, Alex, people need to go directly to the source of Grace for themselves. — Paul Alkazraji

You can change your life if you really want to. You can improve it, make it better. And it all starts with changing the way you think. — John C. Maxwell

I can and will improve the world.
I will smile, show kindness, and be grateful.
I refuse to be unhappy. — Richelle E. Goodrich

To help others develop, start with yourself! When the boss acts like a little god and tells everyone else they need to improve, that behavior can be copied at every level of management. Every level then points out how the level below it needs to change. The end result: No one gets much better. — Marshall Goldsmith

Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. People do their best when there is an opportunity to change how things currently stand. Maintaining the status quo facilitates mediocrity. Those who embrace this practice do not wish to rest on their laurels. They motivate others to exceed their limits and look for innovative ways to improve the organization. — James M. Kouzes

Doing nothing requires effort. Over time, that effort is greater than the effort necessary to improve, or move somewhere better. The trick is to redirect energy. — Max McKeown

To improve is to change. — Winston Churchill

The essence of religion is inertia; the essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained together, either science will advance, in which case the religion will be altered, or the religion will preserve its purity, and science will congeal. — William Winwood Reade

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

If you ask me 'What is the one great move you can make to improve the Israeli economy?' of course it will be signing an agreement with the Arab world about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This will change everything. — Yair Lapid

Ruminating about the past will get you nowhere. So go ahead and learn from the past whatever you can, and then put it behind you. Remember, there is nothing you can do to change it, but you can use its lessons to improve your future. — Abraham J. Twerski

Parthenon looked to me like an even number two or four. And even numbers are against my heart
I don't want to have anything with them. They stand too fast on their legs, they're well-ordered, they don't wish to be moved, they're conservative, satisfied. All problems solved, all desires fulfilled, they can be calm. Odd numbers, they have a rhythm familiar to my heart. The life of the odd numbers is not comfortably arranged. They don't like the world as it is, they wish to change it, improve it, push it forward. They stand on one leg, and they have the other one raised, prepared to go on. They are leaving. Where? To the next even number, where they stop for a while, breathe in, and go on marching again. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Call them stories. When things happen, we invent stories about them. About why they happened. That's all science is, and history - stories about why things happen or happened. They are never, never true - never complete and always at least a little bit wrong, and we know it. But they're true enough to be useful. I doubt our minds could even grasp the whole truth about anything - the nets of causality spread too wide to be held within a single mind. But the stories, the useful lies - we share those and pass them on and when we learn more we improve on them, or when we need different stories for new circumstances, we change them and pretend we always told them that way." Ender — Orson Scott Card

Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system - just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. - HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA — Debra Landwehr Engle

The United States will continue its efforts to improve our understanding of climate change - to seek hard data, accurate models, and new ways to improve the science - and determine how best to meet these tremendous challenges. — George H. W. Bush

If someone requires you to change who you are in order to be with or around them, they're not for you. If you can't be yourself around someone, they're not for you. Someone that has their life together won't sit around and tell you who you need to be. They'll tell you to find who you are and continue to improve on that person. — Trent Shelton

Spoken like a true Nipponese," Enoch says bitterly. "You never change." "Please make me understand what you are saying." "What of the man who cannot get out of bed and work, because he has no legs? What of the widow who has no husband to work, no children to support her? What of children who cannot improve their minds because they lack books and schoolhouses?" "You can shower gold on them," Goto Dengo says. "Soon enough, it will all be gone." "Yes. But some of it will be gone into books and bandages. — Neal Stephenson

The USSR, which they'd begun to renovate and improve at
about the time when Tatarsky decided to change his profession, improved so
much that it ceased to exist (if a state is capable of entering nirvana,
that's what must have happened in this case) — Victor Pelevin

Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. Don't keep going back with your little sand pail and beach shovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone, saying, "Hey! Do you remember this?" Splat! — Jeffrey R. Holland

Most people would rather change their circumstances to improve their lives when instead they need to change themselves to improve their circumstances. They put in just enough effort to distance themselves from their problems without ever trying to go after the root, which can often be found in themselves. Because they don't try to change the source of their problems, their problems keep coming back at them. — John C. Maxwell

Mastery is a blind alley. Since, moreover, he cannot renounce mastery and
become a slave again, the eternal destiny of masters is to live unsatisfied or to be killed. The master
serves no other purpose in history than to arouse servile consciousness, the only form of consciousness
that really creates history. The slave, in fact, is not bound to his condition, but wants to change it. Thus,
unlike his master, he can improve himself, and what is called history is nothing but the effects of his long
efforts to obtain real freedom. Already, by work, by his transformation of the natural world into a
technical world, he manages to escape from the nature which was the basis of his slavery in that he did
not know how to raise himself above it by accepting death. — Albert Camus

If we truly believe in the power of cultural institutions to impact communities and engage authentically with social justice issues, if we believe in museums' capacity to bring about social change, improve cultural awareness, and even transform the world, than we must also believe that our internal practices have an impact, and must act according to the changes we seek. — Monica O Montgomery

It's time to change... it's time to start working on yourself.... improve yourself.... you don't have time for excuses. — Deyth Banger

Remember, for there to be any change in your life circumstances, you must change. You must improve yourself. You must develop your mind. You must change your company. If you want to fly like the eagles, then you have to make friends with the Eagles and not with chickens. You can't be in the company of chickens and hope to fly like the Eagles someday. Life does not work that way. — Bien Sufficient

My first-grade teacher told me I was the dumbest student she ever had. She did me a favor. If she told me I was very smart, I wouldn't have tried to improve. — Ernest Gallo

The equipment and weaponry will continually change and improve, and the size of the military will expand as needed, decreasing during times of peace. But the unyielding will of the soldier and the dedication of professional military leaders will not change. Our soldiers can do a great deal more under pressure than people think. You'd have to see them perform in combat to believe it. — George W. Dunaway

You cannot obtain more truth for a fixed proposition by arguing it. To improve our beliefs, we must necessarily change our beliefs. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The proud do not change to improve, but defend their position by rationalizing. Repentance means change, and it takes a humble person to change. — Ezra Taft Benson

I regret, most of all, my shrivelled heart. So focused on the numbers. On the maths of my personal equation. Can a man change his heart? Are there ways to improve the spirit of who you are? Of why you choose? — Andrew Miller

There are two main strategies we can try to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Society is made up of individuals. The thoughts and actions of each individual influence the culture of that society. Instead of waiting for others to improve, we should try to improve ourselves. Once our attitude has changed, we will be able to perceive goodness throughout world. If there is a positive change in us, it will also be reflected in others. It is only what we give that we can hope to get back. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Every single achievement you make, every single life you change and every single skill you acquire brings you one step closer to becoming a better leader. Every day you can improve the leader in you to become a better person and a greater leader. — Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Since the obvious purpose of pain, misery, and suffering is to tell you something is wrong, fix it, change it, reform, improve, get help; if you don't have the strength to do it, you are stuck with the pain. This is not to say that people with strength don't suffer - they do. They have no immunity to life, but when they feel pain, they get moving or at least they try to do something, and the more strength they have the more successful their efforts are. — William Glasser

Too often, the notion of progress is used as a code word for perfection, the chain of being in a different guise. The term should be employed with caution. Some see an arrow of time in biology, as in physics, but in the opposite direction- a relentless tendency to improve, just as a universe has a built-in trend towards chaos and disorder. That is too optimistic. Some lineages get more complicated, some simpler, and much of life has to struggle to stay in the same place. If everyone is evolving, nobody can afford to stop, and there may be constant change with no overall advance at all. — Steve Jones

Don't just create; create to change; change to improve; improve to increase. Aspire to inspire. — Israelmore Ayivor

If someone were to ask whether communications skills or meekness is most important to a marriage, I'd answer meekness, hands down. You can be a superb communicator but still never have the humility to ask, 'Is it I?' Communication skills are no substitute for Christlike attributes. As Dr. Douglas Brinley has observed, 'Without theological perspectives, secular exercises designed to improve our relationship and our communication skills (the common tools of counselors and marriage books) will never work any permanent change in one's heart: they simply develop more clever and skilled fighters! — John Bytheway

Good teachers aren't simply born, they perfect their craft over time. Teachers need a chance to practice and improve, especially now as the American education system lags behind international standards. If education in the United States is to raise its standards, we need to nurture our teachers through a combination of accountability and development methods. Actionable advice: Don't discipline children too harshly. It's certainly tempting to punish or suspend children that behave badly. That might fix the problem in the short term, but it actually inhibits a child's overall learning. It's much more effective to solve conflicts through social problem solving. When children can engage with a problem in a safe environment, their behavior is more likely to change for the good. — Anonymous

You need to change the whole system to be free, not just improve your part in it. — Kameron Hurley

The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin filling up again. — Anne Lamott

I can't apply $3 billion in capital to the tech industry. It wouldn't work. But in infrastructure, education, I can make a real difference. I can change someone's life, for the better, permanently. If I can improve a kid's education, I can increase their salary later on and for decades. — Dustin Moskovitz

IF YOUR OVERALL SITUATION IS UNSATISFACTORY or unpleasant, separate out this instant and surrender to what is. That's the flashlight cutting through the fog. Your state of consciousness then ceases to be controlled by external conditions. You are no longer coming from reaction and resistance. Then look at the specifics of the situation. Ask yourself, "Is there anything I can do to change the situation, improve it, or remove myself from it?" If so, take appropriate action. Focus not on the hundred things that you will or may have to do at some future time but on the one thing that you can do now. This doesn't mean you should not do any planning. It may well be that planning is the one thing you can do now. But make sure you don't keep running "mental movies" that continually project yourself into the future, and so lose the Now. Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does - do not resist what is. — Eckhart Tolle

Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis. Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, and therefore it doesn't do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we're doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we're doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves. — Pema Chodron

If you have nothing to do, look at yourself and see if there isn't something close at hand that you can improve. It may make you wealthy, although it is more likely it will make you happy. — George Matthew Adams

Just because you are alive, doesn't mean that life is going to hand you everything. If you keep believing life will somehow automatically improve on its own, then you're going to waste many years of your life in a state of disappointment. Life is a continuous experience of independent present moments and choices. So whatever situation you are in right now, just know that it can change if you want it to. The future is immediate! — Anonymous

Turn off the starvation response by eating whenever you're hungry and until fully satisfied. 2. Tame your fat cells with a diet that lowers insulin levels, reduces inflammation (insulin's troublemaker twin), and redirects calories to the rest of your body. 3. Follow a simple lifestyle prescription focused on enjoyable physical activities, sleep, and stress relief to improve metabolism and support permanent behavior change. — David Ludwig

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. — Robert F. Kennedy

I want gaming to be something that everybody does, because they understand that games can be a real solution to problems and a real source of happiness. I want games to be something everybody learns how to design and develop, because they understand that games are a real platform for change and getting things done. And I want families, schools, companies, industries, cities, countries, and the whole world to come together to play them, because we're finally making games that tackle real dilemmas and improve real lives. — Jane McGonigal

The abortion industry can try to improve its 'messaging' all it wants. But unless abortion advocates change their devotion to abortion-on-demand, the only message Americans will receive is that the abortion industry is only really interested in improving its bottom line at the expense of the most defenseless among us. — Gary Bauer

I'm all for having an empowered first lady who can really use that position to improve conditions, be a role model and make change. — Rory Kennedy

Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error — Warren Buffett

It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color-prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor for the white South to reply that their social condition is the main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect. Both must change, or neither can improve to any great extent."(p.88) ... "Only by a union of intelligence and sympathy across the color-line in this critical period of the Republic shall justice and right triumph, — W.E.B. Du Bois

Growing up as a black kid with a white father who loves you, who affirms you, who was part of your life is fundamentally different than what black people in my family were subjected to in the 19th century or the 18th century. But unfortunately, it doesn't change the old racial order. I think we need to let the old racial order just stay where it is and not seek to improve upon it. Not try to create more racial categories, because all that does is it makes a race stick around longer. — Benjamin Jealous

When we seek to change others to suit our desires we engage in folly, but when we seek to improve ourselves, as an example to others we can change the world. — Christopher Earle

If editors truly want to improve their byline ratio, they need to stop lamenting the fact that few women journalists send them cold pitches and start taking a hard look at their stable of regular contributors. How many women are on the masthead? How many women columnists or bloggers are on the payroll? This is how real change is going to happen. — Ann Friedman

A dragon is a confusion at the heart of things, a law unto himself. He embraces good, evil, and indifference; in his own nature he makes them indivisible and absolute. He knows who he is. Surely you see that... Put it this way. Dragons all love life's finer things- music, art, treasure- the works of the spirit; yet in their personal habits they're foul and bestial- they burn down cathedrals, for instance, and eat maidens- and they see in their whimsical activities no faintest contradiction... Dragons never grow, never change... Believe me, nothing in this world is more despicable than a dragon. They're a walking- or flying- condemnation of all we stand for, all we pray for our children, nay, for ourselves. We struggle to improve ourselves, we tortuously balance on the delicate line between our duties to society and our duties within- our duties to God and our own nature. — John Gardner

I once thought it would take a miracle to improve my circumstances. Now, I believe it will take something far more powerful, if such a thing exists. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We have to be bold in our national ambitions. First, we must win the fight against poverty within the next decade. Second, we must improve moral standards in government and society to provide a strong foundation for good governance. Third, we must change the character of our politics to promote fertile ground for reforms. — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Do not feed that beggar. Hamlet, lie down." The dog ignored her.
"Down," Viktor ordered, his deep voice stern. The dog whined and then lay down. The prince looked at her. "You need to be more forceful."
"I suppose my forcefulness will improve once my voice changes. Sopranos get no respect. — Patricia Grasso

You are not making the change because you are a bad person and you are doing it wrong. You make changes because you love yourself and you want to improve the quality of your life. — Louise Hay