Quotes & Sayings About Significant Change

If we hope for more significant therapeutic change, we must encourage our patients to assume responsibility - that is, to apprehend how they themselves contribute to their distress. — Irvin D. Yalom

Because evangelicals view their primary task as evangelism and discipleship,1 they tend to avoid issues that hinder these activities. Thus, they are generally not counter-cultural. With some significant exceptions, they avoid "rocking the boat," and live within the confines of the larger culture. At times they have been able to call for and realize social change, but most typically their influence has been limited to alterations at the margins. So, despite having the subcultural tools to call for radical changes in race relations, they most consistently call for changes in persons that leave the dominant social structures, institutions, and culture intact. This avoidance of boat-rocking unwittingly leads to granting power to larger economic and social forces. It also means that evangelicals' views to a considerable extent conform to the socioeconomic conditions of their time. — Christian Smith

Research backs up this "fake it till you feel it" strategy. One study found that when people assumed a high-power pose (for example, taking up space by spreading their limbs) for just two minutes, their dominance hormone levels (testosterone) went up and their stress hormone levels (cortisol) went down. As a result, they felt more powerful and in charge and showed a greater tolerance for risk. A simple change in posture led to a significant change in attitude. — Sheryl Sandberg

A level 4 leader's greatest asset is his ability to engage, empower, and equip his people; this is what creates the momentum for a significant change in the organization. He invests 80% in his people and 20% in the process. — Farshad Asl

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides adduces a change in language as a major factor in Athens's descent from dysfunctional democracy through demagoguery into tyranny and anarchy: people began to define things in any way they pleased, he says, and the "normally accepted meaning of words" broke down. In his account of the Catiline crisis in republican Rome, Sallust has Cato the Younger identify the misuse of language - specifically the scission of word and meaning - as the underlying cause of the threat to the state. Society, Cato says, has lost the "vera vocabula rerum," literally, the "true names of things."18 In seventeenth-century England, Thomas Hobbes lived through a civil war he believed had been caused in significant measure by a war of words about religion - spread through the pervasive pamphleteering that printing had made possible - that had fatally weakened the linguistic common ground on which an ordered state depends. — Mark John Thompson

A person is quite different from a tree or rock or stream. By introducing the nude into my pictures, I started perceiving all the things I was photographing in new ways. In contrast or opposition to each other, things became much more significant and interesting, revealing many more qualities than I had ever dreamed of knowing and expressing. By using the nude, I stopped thinking in terms of objects. I was seeing things, instead, as dynamic events, unique in their own beings yet also related and existing together within a universal context of energy and change. — Wynn Bullock

Changers are characters who alter in significant ways as a result of the events of your story. They learn something or grow into better or worse people, but by the end of the story they are not the same personalities they were in the beginning. Their change, in its various stages, is called the story's emotional arc. — Nancy Kress

What it needed was a subtle but significant change in presentation. The students needed to know how to fit the tetanus stuff into their lives; the addition of the map and the times when the shots were available shifted the booklet from an abstract lesson in medical risk - a lesson no different from the countless other academic lessons they had received over their academic career - to a practical and personal piece of medical advice. And — Anonymous

Much of the difficulty in attempting to restructure American and other societies arises form this resistance by groups with vested interests in the status quo. Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable and its resisted. — Carl Sagan

As President, my father will change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce. And he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all. — Ivanka Trump

The world is changeable, and its ability to change is so fragile that a single person can be responsible for it. — A.J. Darkholme

Oil policy, policy toward the United States, policy toward Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, very unlikely, I think, to see significant change. These policies were the policies that had a wide family consensus. The question I think would be if the king becomes sick, whether you have weak Saudi leadership in the Arab world and the Middle East rather than strong Saudi leadership, but I think the fundamental policies will continue, the ones we're familiar with under King Abdullah. — Elliott Abrams

Over the past several years, all of us as Canadians, and as members of the North American cultural and economic environment, have been to a greater or lesser extent party to a significant attitudinal change towards our culture. — Alex Campbell

[The New World Order] cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change it's perceptions. — Henry A. Kissinger

In the sphere of human relations, faith is an indispensable quality of any significant friendship or love. "Having faith" in another person means to be certain of the reliability and unchangeability of his fundamental attitudes, of the core of his personality, of his love. By this I do not mean that a person may not change his opinions, but that his basic motivations remain the same; that, for instance, his respect for life and human dignity is part of himself, not subject to change. — Erich Fromm

I don't think any change in the world has been more significant than the change in the status of women ... A woman's world was her home, her family, and perhaps a little community service. Today, a woman's world is as broad as the universe. — Belle S. Spafford

Democrats and Republicans were essentially the same party with different faces and that was why, no matter how many promises each leader made, significant change rarely transpired. — James Morcan

There needs to be a shift in consciousness; there needs to be an absolute wake-up call before society can actually make the kind of incredibly significant changes that need to happen. — Annie Lennox

Food and energy account for a significant portion of household budgets, so the Federal Reserve's inflation objective is defined in terms of the overall change in consumer prices. — Janet Yellen

The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find
someone whose flaws are the sort you don't mind. It is
futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone
who is capable of significant change; that sort of person
exists only in our imaginations. — Scott Adams

You aren't supposed to learn that dedicated, committed effort can bring about significant changes of consciousness and understanding. That's a very dangerous idea, and therefore it's been wiped out of history. — Noam Chomsky

In serving as a pastor for over thirty years, I have seen some remarkable transformations and I've seen some big disappointments. I have two observations. First, where there has been lasting change, the common factor, in every case, is that the Word of God has had a significant entrance into the person's life. Second, where godly change has failed to get started, or has slowly unraveled, the common factor, in every case, is that change has been attempted without significant engagement in the Scriptures. — Colin S. Smith

Human beings are tool-making animals. Since the prehistoric era, we have created and used a wide variety of objects.
But now a significant change is about to occur.
In the near future, we will simply become another object that can be monitored, tracked and controlled within a vast machine. — John Twelve Hawks

Climate change is and will be a significant threat to our national security and in a larger sense to life on earth as we know it to be. — Gordon R. Sullivan

Change your mind about something significant every day. — Malcolm Gladwell

A good plan allows for plenty of spontaneity and room for change - but without a plan at all, it's difficult to work toward something significant over time. — Chris Guillebeau

I glanced around, but no one seemed to be watching me. That would probably change once I started yelling at a waiter. I have Archer what I hoped was a significant look, but thanks to all the sparkle, I wasn't sure he got it.
I walked away to the corner of the room and ducked behind a truly insane amount of potted plants. The light back there was dim and green, and everything smelled rich and loamy. — Rachel Hawkins

There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person's life. — John Irving

I was going to get smart, and I was going to change the world. I was audacious enough to believe it, too. Fortunately it takes that kind of audacity to accomplish anything significant. — Jamie Sedgwick

The number of hypotheses and theories about climate change are numerous. Quite naturally they have caught the public attention, as any proof of past climactic change points to the possibility of future climate change, which inevitably will have significant implications for global economics. — Eduard Bruckner

The consequences of man-made climate change are real and very significant. — Jeff Orlowski

I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change. — Gina Rinehart

We, as a country, have not seen a significant change in immigration policy in nearly two decades, even though all Americans agree that current immigration policy is outdated and malfunctioning. — Raul Grijalva

I don't kid myself in thinking that I'm on the front lines. I know the people who are on the front lines. I mean there are people in some freakin' significant places making on-the-ground social front line change. I've marched. I've put feet on the ground for what I believe and what I'm against with no compromise. And there are people who are risking a whole hell of a lot more than me to make change, that's for damn sure. — Ben Harper

If you want real, significant, sustainable change, you need talented, committed local line leaders. If the line manager is not innovating, then innovation is not going to occur. — Peter Senge

I'm still thinking and hoping there's an opportunity for people to have better lives and that significant change can occur. — Tracy Chapman

If you want to be a thought leader, market leader, or change the world - you have to give up the need to be liked. Telling people what they want to hear makes you popular. Telling people what they need to hear makes you relevant, empowering, and significant.

Don't pander to the masses. Speak to the people you really want to reach and be honest. Challenge them to do more and become better. And know that if you're not attracting some haters - you're probably not doing something significant. — Randy Gage

An occupying power has no right to make significant alterations in the character of the occupied society, to change the laws all around, without a strong security reason and so forth. — Juan Cole

It is quite obvious that the temperature change during the last 100 years or so includes significant natural changes, both the linear change and fluctuations. It is very puzzling that the IPCC reports state that it is mostly due to the greenhouse effect. — Syun-Ichi Akasofu

Patients must be willing to give up their maladaptive coping styles in order to change. For example, patients who continue surrendering to the schema - by remaining in destructive relationships or by not setting limits in their personal or work lives -perpetuate the schema and are not able to make significant progress in therapy. — Jeffrey E. Young

A revolution simply means great change, significant change, and that's how I'm defining it - great change for the better, brought about through non-violent means. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Innovation is significant positive change. — Scott Berkun

The United States is strongly committed to the IPCC process of international cooperation on global climate change. We consider it vital that the community of nations be drawn together in an orderly, disciplined, rational way to review the history of our global environment, to assess the potential for future climate change, and to develop effective programs. The state of the science, the social and economic impacts, and the appropriate strategies all are crucial components to a global resolution. The stakes here are very high; the consequences, very significant. — George H. W. Bush

The passage of fourteen years had led to another significant change in the international environment. As I told Bush 43 and Condi Rice on more than one occasion, when I had been in government before, problems or crises more often than not would arise, be dealt with, and go away. The Yom Kippur War in October 1973, a serious crisis that risked confrontation with the Soviet Union, was over in a few days. Even the Iranian hostage crisis, as painful and protracted as it was, ended in 444 days. Now hardly any issue or problem could be resolved and put aside; instead problems accumulated. — Robert M. Gates

One does not ask about one's true identity simply as a matter of course, but only in rather special circumstances. What this means, I believe, is that "who I really am" becomes an issue for me only when my system of values "breaks down," that is, only when I realize that the values according to which I have lived until now are insufficient to inform a life that I can recognize as satisfying. This realization can occur in variety of circumstances: when my beliefs about myself or the world undergo significant change; when I find that two of my values conflict in a fundamental way; or when, as in the present example, the relations among my previous commitments are insufficiently determinate to tell me what to do in the particular situation I face. — Frederick Neuhouser

Significant and seemingly impossible social and political change happens more often than we think, and it happens more rapidly than we realize. Even the most momentous change is always possible if one finds the right way to make it happen. — Glenn Greenwald

One might have thought that the most significant change in the film industry that would come about with a transition from the communist economy to capitalism would fundamentally concern the sources of funding. — Andrzej Wajda

Another response to racism has been the establishment of unlearning racism workshops, which are often led by white women. These workshops are important, yet they tend to focus primarily on cathartic individual psychological personal prejudice without stressing the need for corresponding change in political commitment and action. A woman who attends an unlearning racism workshop and learns to acknowledge that she is racist is no less a threat than one who does not. Acknowledgment of racism is significant when it leads to transformation. — Bell Hooks

Mourning is essential to uncoupling, as it is to any significant leavetaking. Uncoupling is a transition into a different lifestyle, a change of life course which, whether we recognize and admit it in the early phases or not, is going to be made without the other person. We commit ourselves to relationships expecting them to last, however. In leaving behind a significant person who shares a portion of our life, we experience a loss. — Diane Vaughan

The society of life on Mars, or the challenge of making Mars more livable, will have significant benefits on our attempts to modify and change in some ways the environment here on Earth. — Buzz Aldrin

There are moments that change the course of one's lifetime, and often we don't realize how significant those initial may be until years pass. — Robin Hobb

Whether sexual orientation can change or not, hearts can change and turn any sexual orientation into an occasion for the glory of Christ. Those with same-sex attraction glorify Christ through sexual abstinence and through the enrichment of significant Christ-exalting relationships in other ways. — John Piper

I'm very hopeful that we'll see some change in our food system. I don't know how far we'll go, or how quickly we'll get there, but there is no question that a significant percentage of the American public is dissatisfied with the food system. — Michael Pollan

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history. — Sonia Johnson

It's a myth that people change. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on therapy trying to address their issues, but I know very few people who have ever made any significant changes. You are who you are. You can bemoan it, you can try to become a different person, or you can celebrate yourself. I choose to do the latter — Dennis Hof

War, poverty, corruption, hunger, misery, human suffering will not change in a monetary system. That is, there will be very little significant change. It's going to take the redesign of our culture and values. — Jacque Fresco

I am flattered that Bob Carter should ask me to launch what I think is a significant new book on climate change. I have developed a very high regard for Bob in the years that I have known him. He has been a terrific and leading voice in combatting the scare mongering that we have all been subjected to on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. — Nick Minchin

The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate. — Benjamin Graham

All cities do face similar, significant trends in the future ... most importantly global warming and climate change. — Cate Blanchett

An effective follow-up system is the key to an effective coaching process, which will lead to significant behavioral changes. True success is in the follow-up. — Farshad Asl

It is well to start by distinguishing the few really great - the major novelists who count in the same way as the major poets, in the sense that they not only change the possibilities of the art for practitioners and readers, but that they are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote; awareness of the possibilities of life. — F.R. Leavis

Once the people have been deluded into believing that speeches and voting are the only acceptable tools by which to affect change in their nation, those who are in control no longer need to worry about any significant challenge to their power. — Dave Champion

Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable and is resisted. — Carl Sagan

Yet, thousands of africans and young african youths have failed to acknowledge the significant of what madiba gave them. To me, he be called the pride in black skin and the freedom we are enjoying — Victor Adeagbo

I want to change the world and I used to think I needed to do some big, significant thing. More recently I see this can be accomplished one relationship at a time. — Oliver Thomas

The chief role of the universities is to prolong adolescence into middle age, at which point early retirement ensures that we lack the means or the will to enforce significant change. — J.G. Ballard

As for the human case, the generation of men come and go and are in eternity no more than bacteria upon a luminous slide, and the fall of a republic or the rise of an empire - so significant to those involved - are not detectable upon the slide even were there an interested eye to behold that steadily proliferating species which would either end in time or, with luck, become something else, since change is the nature of life, and its hope. — Gore Vidal

Significant changes in the growth rate of money supply, even small ones, impact the financial markets first. Then, they impact changes in the real economy, usually in six to nine months, but in a range of three to 18 months. Usually in about two years in the US, they correlate with changes in the rate of inflation or deflation."
"The leads are long and variable, though the more inflation a society has experienced, history shows, the shorter the time lead will be between a change in money supply growth and the subsequent change in inflation. — Milton Friedman

If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government, — Peter Singer

If you have put your faith in Christ and have spent significant time in the Word of God, the tough times can be like a magnet that draws you to the Lord Jesus. Nothing is going to happen - ever - that will catch Jesus Christ by surprise. He is able to help His children work through anything, and not a single thing is going to happen in the future that can change that fact. — David Jeremiah

Greenhouse gas pollution, through its contribution to global climate change, presents a significant threat to Americans' health and to the environment upon which our economy and security depends. — Gina McCarthy

I don't think the human effect [of climate change] is significant compared to the natural effect. — Harrison Schmitt

The most significant change in a person's life is a change of attitude. Right attitudes produce right actions. — William J. Johnston

In truth, it's usually failure, disappointment, and frustration that motivate people to reexamine that which they've taken for granted. It's rare to find big change without significant bad news ... In that sense, the pain of failure creates the largest opportunities for progress. — Judith M Bardwick

The one significant change is in fact the second significant change — Jonathan Pearce

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

One of the enduring myths of campaign analysis is that you can actually count the number of 'undecided' voters by asking voters if they are undecided or not. Sometimes, significant numbers of voters actually change their minds. — Jeff Greenfield

But it was a significant exercise, for it meant that I considered myself worthy, as I had never done before. That change in my consciousness was so bewildering that I looked back on my previous life with a sort of amazed pity. That narrowness, those scruples, that prolonged childhood ... I even, and this is a great test, began to consider journeys I might make, for my own pleasure, without him. I had never been to Greece and I thought I might go now, some time soon. And I knew that if I went I should enjoy it, as I had never enjoyed a journey before. Because I should have James to come back to. By the very fact of his existence, he had given the validity to my entire future. — Anita Brookner

You study the Path of Peace. I practice the Art of War. There are some congruities between these different approaches but there are many more differences, and they are significant. The Art of War is carried out on the battlefield with deadly weaponry and sometimes, more importantly, in other places and in other ways that you would find distasteful. If I speak little about my plans it's because the Art of War teaches that it is the business of a general to ensure secrecy. You might want to mollify or change my tactics or strategies to fit the morals of your peacetime world and I'd be shackled and hampered in seeing the victory won as it should be, as quickly as possible, with as little fighting as possible, and at the lowest cost possible. You cannot bear the consequences of battle and you don't know the resources required. I do. — Aleksandra Layland

Most of us lead or are led by lives of patterned regularity. Diurnally, surprises are relatively few. And except for economic or physical uncertainties, we neither face nor court significant degrees of risk because a fundamental drive in the vast majority of us is toward the attainment of as much security as is possible.
In this sense, jazzmen, of all musicians, are our surrogates for the unpredictable, our paladins of constant change. — Nat Hentoff

Cereal production in the rain-fed areas still remains relatively unaffected by the impact of the green revolution, but significant change and progress are now becoming evident in several countries. — Norman Borlaug

Realize that narcissists have an addiction disorder. They are strongly addicted to feeling significant. Like any addict they will do whatever it takes to get this feeling often. That is why they are manipulative and future fakers. They promise change, but can't deliver if it interferes with their addiction. That is why they secure back up supply. — Shannon L. Alder

After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever. — Quincy Jones

Here's the worst detail of all - worse than Wham! even, if you can believe it. It all happened at Applebee's. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a snob. I don't have a problem with Applebee's per se. But I think we can all agree, as a civilized society, that lives shouldn't change there. Significant things shouldn't begin or end at Applebee's. You shouldn't walk into Applebee's as one thing and then leave as something else entirely. She — Matthew Norman

Whether the reality of change is a source of freedom for us or a source of horrific anxiety makes a significant difference. Do the days of our lives add up to further suffering or to increased capacity for joy? That's an important question. — Pema Chodron

Fundamental renegotiation is very, very unlikely to produce any significant change — Vince Cable

Mitchell had answered that, as far as he understood them, mystical experiences were significant only to the extent that they changed a person's conception of reality, and if that changed conception led to a change in behavior and action, a loss of ego. — Jeffrey Eugenides

The computer field is intoxicated with change. We have seen galloping growth over a period of four decades and it still does not seem to be slowing down. The field is not mature yet and already it accounts for a significant percentage of the Gross National Product. — Fernando J. Corbato

There are times in life when the best part of our life and the worst part seemingly coincide, especially those periods that demark commencement of significant personal transformation. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Changing a planning tool or a method won't create significant change in the results we're getting in our lives - although the implied promise is that it will. It's not a matter of controlling things more, better, or faster; it's questioning the whole assumption of control. — Stephen R. Covey

"Hard" science fiction probes alternative possible futures by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of novelty with its pertinent kind of realism. — Jack Williamson

When any significant change takes place in the moral standards of a community, it is immediately reflected in a general shifting of the meanings of common words. — Owen Barfield

You can't change the past but you can change everything else. Take your first step toward making a significant change in your life, today. — Hal Elrod

Part of my methodological approach is made explicit when I discuss ways in which literature can have philosophical significance. Literature doesn't typically argue - and when it does, it's deadly dull. But literature can supply the frame within which we come to observe and reason, or it can change our frame in highly significant ways. That's one of the achievements I'd claim for Mann, and for Death in Venice. — Philip Kitcher

You may think that being chic has nothing to do with the most insignificant and mundane moments of the day. Moments like preparing your meals, emptying the dishwasher, and paying bills. But the secret is: those moments aren't insignificant. Au contraire. They are very significant. That's right - if you can change your attitude about making the pasta sauce, choosing your clothes for the day, folding the laundry, setting the table, or dealing with the incoming mail, you can completely change your life. — Jennifer L. Scott

From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the U.S. economy, as planners, private and state, shifted it toward financialization and the offshoring of production, driven in part by the declining rate of profit in domestic manufacturing. — Noam Chomsky

I think you're never going to get somewhere ambitious if you don't start out with great ambitions. What I would say is: we got a start. That to me is a very significant thing. Here we were, a historic meeting to talk about climate change. — Christy Clark

Large institutions such as the Pentagon, the Internal Revenue Service, and multinational corporations tell us that their decisions are made on the basis of solutions generated by computers, and this is usually good enough to put our minds at ease or, rather, to sleep. In any case, it constrains us from making complaints or accusations. In part for this reason, the computer has strengthened bureaucratic institutions and suppressed the impulse toward significant social change. — Neil Postman

Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological. I mean "ecological" in the same sense as the word is used by environmental scientists. One significant change generates total change. If you remove the caterpillars from a given habitat, you are not left with the same environment minus caterpillars: you have a new environment, and you have reconstituted the conditions of survival; the same is true if you add caterpillars to an environment that has had none. This is how the ecology of media works as well. A new technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything. — Neil Postman

Our culture teaches us that making significant changes takes a long time and is difficult to do. This is simply NOT true. Change happens in an instant. It is not a process - it is something you do in an instant by simply making a decision. — Tony Robbins