Change History Quotes

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. ~ Marge Piercy

It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change. ~ Blaise Pascal

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. ~ R.D. Laing

But I love you, and before you say it words do matter. They're not pointless. If they were pointless then they couldn't start revolutions and they wouldn't change history and they wouldn't be the things that you think about every night before you go to sleep. If they were just words we wouldn't listen to songs, we wouldn't beg to be read to when we're kids. If they were just words, then they'd have no meaning and stories wouldn't have been around since before humans could write. We wouldn't have learned to write. If they were just words then people wouldn't fall in love because of them, feel bad because of them, ache because of them, stop aching because of them, have sex, quite a lot of the time, because of them. ~ Cath Crowley

Thirty years later he could not come to any other conclusion: women were indisputably better than men. They were gentler, more affectionate, more loving and more compassionate, they were rarely violent, selfish, cruel or self-centred. Moreover, they were more rational, more intelligent and more hardworking.
What on earth were men for? Michael wondered as he watched sunlight play across the closed curtains. In earlier times, when bears were more common, perhaps masculinity served a particular function, but for centuries now, men served no useful purpose. For the most part, they assuaged their boredom playing squash, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need to change history - which expressed itself in leading a revolution or starting a war somewhere. Aside from the senseless suffering they caused, revolutions and war destroyed the achievements of the past, forcing societies to build again. Without the notion of continuous progress, human evolution took random, irregular and violent turns for which men (with their predilection for risk and danger, their repulsive egotism, their volatile nature and their violent tendencies) were directly to blame. A society of women would be immeasurably superior, tracing a slow, unwavering progression, with no U-turns and no chaotic insecurity, towards a general happiness. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Time is there for a purpose, to keep things in order. Once you change chronology you change history. The past could eat up the present ... ~ Jan Siegel

As a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair. ~ William Gibson

In every era, there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history, because they change the course of history. ~ Gordon Brown

Why don't they go ahead and change the name of the White House to the West House. They want to do away with the heritage of White Settlement and destroy the history of White Settlement. ~ Alan Price

I've always had a Marxist understanding of history: democracy is a result of a broad modernization process that happens in every country. Neocons think the use of political power can force the pace of change, but ultimately it depends on societies doing it themselves. ~ Francis Fukuyama

I never set out to write a book to change women's lives, to change history. It's like, 'Who, me?' Yes, me. I did it. And I'm not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman. ~ Betty Friedan

There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein's classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change. ~ Edward Witten

Again, Syd had that feeling, the past as an echo, repeating itself as it faded. The poor had longed for Jubilee to save them from the powerful, and now the one-time patrons longed for the Machine to do the same. Every revolution believes it can return something that had been lost, but nothing is ever the same. The only thing that endures are people. Syd saw that clearly now, and perhaps so too did Marie. You could serve a revolution, an idea that ended up an echo if itself, or you could serve people, with their maddening contradictions. You couldn't serve both. You had to choose. ~ Alex London

A man who goes forth to take the life of another whom he does not know must believe one thing only - that by his act he will change the course of history. ~ Yitzhak Shamir

There comes a day in every man's life when he stops looking forward and starts looking back.
Because of my father's circumstances, I had a sad commentary on life, but I now understood that he was offering me his own gift, one that only time can provide. He was offering me the gift of perspective. My father was telling me that while we tend to remember the dramatic incidents that change history---Armstrong's walk on the moon, Nixon's resignation, and the Loma Prieta earthquake---we live for the quiet, intimate moments that mark not our calendars, but our hearts: The day we marry. The days our children are born. Their first step. Their first word. Their first day of school. And when our children grow, we remember those moments with a touch of melancholy: the day they get their driver's license, the day we drive them to college, the day they marry, and the day they have their children.
And the cycle begins anew.
We realize it is in those quiet moments that each of us has the ability to make our lives extraordinary. ~ Robert Dugoni

I have seen how effective language attached to policies that are mainstream and delivered by people who are passionate and effective can change the course of history. ~ Frank Luntz

In the history of the world, all five mass extinctions have been accompanied by massive climate change, so we are facing an incredibly serious threat. In fact, we are technically in the sixth mass extinction right now, and it is the first mass extinction being attributed to humans. ~ Cameron Russell

When I was in school I studied biology. I learned that in making their experiments scientists will take some group
bacteria, mice, people
and subject that group to certain conditions. They compare the results with a second group which has not been disturbed. This second group is called the control group. It is the control group which enables the scientist gauge the effect of his experiment. To judge the significance of what has occurred. In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who o not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God
who knows all that can be known
seems powerless to change. ~ Cormac McCarthy

We are about to change history, said Saphira.
We're throwing ourselves off a cliff without knowing how deep the water below is.
Ah, but what a glorious flight!
(Eragon to Saphira) ~ Christopher Paolini

I turn my negatives into my positives because one of my mottos is, 'Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery,' meaning that you can't go back and change anything in the past. ~ Vanilla Ice

I'm honored that I'm in history, but I don't think it would mean anything if it doesn't change anything. ~ Raha Moharrak

America, I don't think you can change history." All the same, his expression looked hopeful.
"Sure we can. Besides, who'd ever know about it but you and me? ~ Kiera Cass

Some people are meant to change history. And some people are meant to change out of their vomity interview clothes. ~ Becky Albertalli

I felt unsteady as I lead Xerxes to his seat. Women in his kingdom were but dressing for a man's bed and a satisfactory way to provide heirs. The king had once banished a queen on the advice of his counsel. Now would he accept the word of his queen and banish the adviser? Dear God, I pleaded silently, how can it be that I should change history? I am a prisoner myself – how can I asked for the freedom of a nation? ~ Ginger Garrett

People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas. ~ Erica Jong

I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet. ~ Mahmoud Darwish

Even the Sovereign couldn't change History, but he could decide how History was interpreted ... ~ Heidi Ruby Miller

You've always called it a store, ever since we were kids. It's a bookshop. It's not like some other retail store. It might be the same in a whole lot of ways, but this bookshop is special. Books are special. Books are important. Words are important. Words matter, in fact. They're not pointless, as you've suggested. If they were pointless, then they couldn't start revolutions and they wouldn't change history. If they were just words, we wouldn't write songs or listen to them. We wouldn't beg to be read to as kids. If they were just words, then stories wouldn't have been around since before we could write. We wouldn't have learned to write. If they were just words, people wouldn't fall in love because of them, feel bad because of them, ache because of them, and stop aching because of them. ~ Cath Crowley

The secret is to create the condition for change, a process that sometimes takes decades, and then use certain men as pivot points, a fulcrum to move history. ~ Robert Ferrigno

She would find that love again - one day. And it would be deep and unrelenting and unexpected, the beginning and the end and eternity, the kind that could change history, change the world. ~ Sarah J. Maas

In most organizations, change comes in only two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Review the history of the average organization and you'll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change. ~ Gary Hamel

Currently, we allow our political and business leaders to get away with murder. Now is the time to change that. We need direct liability for those who are destroying our future and this planet. We need fast, profound and systemic change. History only moves forward when courageous people get up and act. That's why I support this citizens' initiative to recognise ecocide as the crime it is. ~ Kumi Naidoo

The hallmark of our times is change and acceleration, but we have to provide the history. ~ Jim Leach

I wanted to change history and preserve humanity. But in the process I changed myself and preserved my own. ~ Danny Lyon

Your requests change history because your prayers change God! ~ Max Lucado

“"Your hair was beautiful too. All of you. You were amazing
when we first met, and somehow, inexplicably, youʹve come even farther. Youʹve always
been pure, raw energy, and now you control it. Youʹre the most amazing woman Iʹve ever
met, and Iʹm glad to have had that love for you in my life. I regret losing it." He grew
pensive. "I would give anything - anything - in the world to go back and change history.
To run into your arms after Lissa brought me back. To have a life with you. Itʹs too late,
of course, but Iʹve accepted it."” ~ Richelle Mead

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

The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history Europe has experience of heretics who turned out to have a point. ~ David Cameron

There are so many figures in our history that did not believe they could make a change, and they did. ~ Malala Yousafzai

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history. ~ Rick Riordan

Christians should be ready for a change because Jesus was the greatest changer in history. ~ Ralph Abernathy

You see gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history rather than simply repeat it. Humans can ... how do you moderns say it ... think outside the cup. ~ Rick Riordan

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history. ~ Dalai Lama

Isn't that the fantasy? If I go back in time, knowing what people back then didn't know, then I can change history! But history made you what you are. And it's bigger than any one man. ~ Dexter Palmer

Then you would have acted to change history, but you would have replaced one history with another. You would not be able to know what past version of history you would have altered, because that history would never have happened. Nor would you be able to know what you had done in the past, or that you had done anything at all in the past, or that you had even been to the past. You would not be able to compare histories in your mind; if you entered the causality violation device knowing this, then you would realize that you would be trading one set of memories for another, and that there would never be any evidence, in your mind or in the world, that you had done this. ~ Dexter Palmer

I can't change history, I don't want to change history. I can only change the future. I'm working on that. ~ Boris Becker

words do matter. They're not pointless. If they were pointless then they couldn't start revolutions and they wouldn't change history and they wouldn't be the things that you think about every night before you go to sleep. If they were just words we wouldn't listen to songs, ~ Cath Crowley

Revenge! The stupidest motive on earth, just an attempt to change history. ~ Josephine Humphreys

I have a unique history. There's no way to ever separate what your life would have been like if you had taken a different path. You have to embrace what is yours, and if you don't like it, you have to decide to change it. ~ Eve Plumb

The essence of a person is not the clothing she wears or the things he does. People who love them do not stop loving them when they change clothing or do other things. Your essence is not even your history, culture, race, or what you think and do. It is your soul. ~ Gary Zukav

Quality sex is only possible with true sexual equality. We've never--at any point in Western history--had a time where the majority of the population valued women's ways of orgasm as equal to a man's. It's time to change history. ~ Laurie Mintz

Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconsciousness with habits and values. ~ Arthur M. Schlesinger

As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter ... ~ Margaret Atwood

In a way, that's always been Yes' history to a large extent! Quite a few occasions when we've had a new band member or change in members, then we've done a new album with new chops and refreshed the musical approach. ~ Chris Squire

To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States - black people didn't have the right to vote. ~ Agnes Varda

I really believed that if I could play that character, who is grounded in the earth and the history of the United States - not the kind of role I usually play - it would help me change the perception out there and my own perception of what I can accomplish as a performer. ~ Andrea Martin

History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton. ~ Gwen Ifill

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

Ignorance and its denial will, sad to say, lead us down the same road as it did in all past history. ~ Jordan Maxwell

The crisis of history in France, is a crisis of social bond, a crisis of citizenship. A citizen is the heir of a past more or less mythified, but he makes his own, whatever his personal genealogy. Today, under the pretext that the country has undergone considerable changes, some would like to transform the past in order to adopt it to the new face of France. Nothing, however, will make the past anything other than what it was. To pretend to change history is a totalitarian project: One who has control of the past has control over the future, one who has control over the present has control over the past, as George Orwell wrote in 1984. ~ Jean Sevillia

The notion of the Internet as a force of political and social revolution is not a new one. As far back as the early 1990s, in the early days of the World Wide Web, there were technologists and writers arguing forcefully that the Internet was destined to become the most important tool for cultural change in human history. ~ Jamais Cascio

One mushroom cloud would change history. My deepest fear is that this is exactly what they Al Qaeda intend. ~ George Tenet

I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives. ~ Kathryn Harrison

The easiest way of change history is to become a historian. ~ Jerry Falwell

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history. ~ Pete Seeger

For us to change history, we first need to change the future. ~ Anthony Liccione

In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn't fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood. ~ Neil MacGregor

I was feeling a strong need to change, grow, and break with particular things that were going on in my life and my history, and the material was the perfect answer for that. ~ Jim Hodges

Outside events can change a presidential campaign, a president, and the history of the nation: the Iranian hostage crisis, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the downing of the helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. ~ Mark McKinnon

I mean, doesn't it change history even if you just tread on an ant?' 'For the ant, certainly,' said Qu. ~ Terry Pratchett

If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history. The difference is prayer. ~ Mark Batterson

Moammar Gaddafi, who has called himself the 'Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,' should go down in history with the Emperor Bokassa and Idi Amin as a grotesque reminder of why people have the right to change their government. ~ Elliott Abrams

We're a terribly lonesome society. For all I know, all societies are. You can make a few new friends, that's all. You can't change history. History is happening to us now. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

We cannot change the history of the past. ~ Jimmy Carter

We did it. Make no mistake: We have written history. Today there's a change of guards in Denmark. ~ Helle Thorning-Schmidt

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different. ~ Aldous Huxley

History made when mindset changed. ~ Toba Beta

The world has entered an era of the most profound and challenging change in human history. ~ Stephen Covey

High and mighty guzzlers, and you, O all you precious pox-ridden - while you have the leisure and I have nothing else more important to do, let me ask you a question: why does everybody say, as if it were proverbially true, that the world is no longer flat? Understand, please, that "flat" here means "without zest, unsalted, insipid, washed-out": taking it metaphorically, it signifies "crazy, foolish, senseless, rot-brained." Would you argue, as indeed one might logically infer, that if we say that the world has been flat, now we have to say that it's become wise? What was it that made it flat? Why was it flat? Why should it be wise? What do you think ancient stupidity was? What do you think constitutes our present wisdom? What made it flat? What has made it wise? Are there more lovers of flatness or more lovers of wisdom? Just exactly when was it flat? Just exactly when was it wise? Who's responsible for that earlier flatness? Who's responsible for that later wisdom? Why did that ancient flatness end right now, and not at some other time? Why did our present wisdom begin right now, and not sooner? What harm did our earlier flatness do us? What good is this new wisdom? How did we get rid of our ancient flatness? How was our present wisdom brought about? ~ Francois Rabelais

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction. ~ Richard M. Nixon

When it comes to providing aid, developing innovations, and making bold steps that change the course of history, the United States is usually on the front lines. ~ Seth Berkley

Generals, admirals, kings, and presidents make history; words change history. In more than two centuries of watching, at least that has not changed. -- Joshua Augustus Johnson. "Appomattox ~ Lloyd Vancil

There are people who desperately want to change the world.
I wonder if it could be measured, because the world is already
in the state of continuously change since the beginning of time.
Or they may just want their names etched nicely on men history. ~ Toba Beta

What is a human but a choice maker? Choices are powerful. Choices change history. Choices change the world. Remember your power! ~ Bryant McGill

We can not change history, we can not turn back time, but we can change ourselves,change for the better. ~ Faiz Triumph

There exist continuation of time; past, present and future. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. ~ Ted Sizer

If an aristocrat became bankrupt he looked to the sunshine of royal providence [ ... ] but when the nobility sank too low to qualify for royal notice, they became fraudsters, trading on the display of rank: the man would become a card-sharper or gigolo, while the woman sold herself. Actual work would have been unthinkable. It would have offended against the ancient order of things, which assigned that role to the middle classes and the peasantry. This concept is difficult to connect with our modern view of the world, but its very absurdity follows directly from the fact that everything in its old order was so firm and wonderful - with everything in its eternally appointed place and moving in fixed circles like the stars. There was no changing your lot in life at will: it was assigned to you forever, by birth. If you fell below your appointed station, you couldn't just swap it for another - you simply plummeted into the void. ~ Antal Szerb

Life is not at all what you might think it to be
A simple tale where each thing has its history
It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes
Both evil and good, subject to the same laws. ~ John Ashbery

The theologian and the executioner have been intimates throughout history. ~ Michael Wood

Places do not lose their identity, however far one travels. It is the heart that begins to erode over time. The face in the hotel mirror seems blurred some mornings, as if by too many casual looks. By ten the sheets will be laundered, the carpet swept. The names on the hotel registers change as we pass. We leave no trace as we pass on. Ghostlike, we cast no shadow. ~ Joanne Harris

It's more common to ignore the epidemic of punitive parenting and focus instead on the occasional example of permissiveness - sometimes even to the point of pronouncing an entire generation spoiled. It's revealing, and even somewhat amusing, that similar alarms probably have been raised about every generation throughout recorded history. ~ Alfie Kohn

God values you simply because He created you. You are precious to Him, and your value will never change. ~ Victoria Osteen

I think the whole DVD craze has provided opportunities for material that, for those interested in it, explains the whole history and background in getting a film made, which is great. ~ Steven Bauer

I went and did some things [rehab], and then of course my life didn't change that much [for a while], but I never missed work. ~ Kelsey Grammer

We have a chance to do something extraordinary. As we head out of this pandemic we can change the world. Create a world of love. A world where we are kind to each other. A world were we are kind no matter what class, race, sexual orientation, what religion or lack of or what job we have. A world we don't judge those at the food bank because that may be us if things were just slightly different. Let love and kindness be our roadmap. ~ Johnny Corn

Accept the difficulty of what you cannot yet change. But do not accept the impossibility of ever changing it. ~ Aubrey De Grey

A change of heart leads to change in behavior, and a change in behavior leads to changing the world. ~ Marianne Williamson

A few key terms that frame the dynamics of complexity theory will be a starting point for further study and further reflection on how complexity theory can increase our awareness of organizational dynamics and the nested systems of change that constitute life and change. ~ Milton Friesen