How To Change Mankind Quotes

A fundamental shift of our perceptions and consciousness are necessary for any great improvements for mankind. ~ Debasish Mridha

When I am asked to summarize the fundamental message from research on self-control, I recall "Descartes's famous dictum cogito, ergo sum - "I think, therefore I am." What has been discovered about mind, brain, and self-control lets us move from his proposition to "I think, therefore I can change what I am." Because by changing how we think, we can change what we feel, do, and become. If that leads to the question "But can I really change?," I reply with what George Kelly said to his therapy clients when they kept asking him if they could get control of their lives. He looked straight into their eyes and said, "Would you like to? ~ Walter Mischel

I realized how truly hard it was, really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not only is it scary, it throws your balance off as well. ~ Sarah Dessen

I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of it's very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can't-I don't have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wished they happened.
She says, "Yes, there are lives sadder than the saddest of books." I say, "Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life. ~ Agota Kristf

This was becoming an increasingly common fixture here on campus, students protesting some sort of perceived injustice. It wasn't too surprising; righteous indignation was practically the calling card of a college student. They were experts at single-mindedly championing any cause they saw as deserving, but having few practical ideas on how to really change things. ~ Julia J. Gibbs

I knew his face when he came. Of course I knew it. Even a Star dreams. I have been dreaming a long time, and I watched the glittering cord of that man's life spool out until it intersected with mine, and how the sparks lit the grass at my feet! I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other. But Stars, you know, are fixed in their courses, and we can no more change the throttling paces of orbit than a rabbit can shorten its ears. I saw his cord lashing and snapping in the dark, and could do nothing. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I think no matter how you think about your music, you're ultimately in the music 'business.' I think you have to be business-minded in some sense. And for me, the real goal ... is positive intention and social change through music. It doesn't mean that can't turn a profit. ~ Mary Lambert

Thank God I never hooked on anything. I never had a monkey on my back. I just wanted to self-medicate, to numb myself through liquor. It's how I dealt with life, reality, stress, change, sadness, memories. The list goes on. I was really trying to feel nothing. ~ Johnny Depp

Royal joined the singing to change the subject and to remind her that there were things a body could feel good about. A community that had come together, from seeding to harvest to the bee. But the song was a work song Cora knew from the cotton rows, drawing her back to the Randall cruelties and making her heart thud. Connelly used to start the song as a signal to go back to picking after a whipping. how could such a bitter thing become a means of pleasure? ~ Colson Whitehead

At this moment he wished to be a man without qualities. But this is probably not so very different from what other people sometimes feel too. After all, by the time they have reached the middle of their life's journey few people remember how they have managed to arrive at themselves, at their amusements, their point of view, their wife, character, occupation and successes, but they cannot help feeling that not much is likely to change any more. It might even be asserted that they have been cheated, for one can nowhere discover any sufficient reason for everything's having come about as it has. ~ Robert Musil

Isn't the essential pillar of Catholicism papal infallibility? Well, then how can the church ever change its mind about anything unless God gets confused one day? Not all religions claim the direct authority of God speaking to their leader. You know, I'm an atheist, but I'm a Puritan atheist. ~ Dave Foley

Still, most fathers would want to see their child happily settled."

"Yes, indeed. He would be one of the first to wish me well … but…"

"But?"

"Change is not his ally. Father doesn't realize it, of course, but he falls into a decline whenever there is the slightest deviation of his routine. He leans on it most heavily and would tumble if the prop disappeared. Even my summer away will be detrimental to his well-being."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, indeed, most heartily. I have reports that he has not been eating as he should. Needs my cajoling, I suspect."

"Still, your papa would not want to see you sacrifice your happiness for his."

"No more than I would want to sacrifice his happiness for mine."

"Dear me, that is quite the quandary."

"Yes, quite."

"He might be more adaptable than you think."

Juliana held up her hand to stop his continuing protest. "Do not believe it is in any way a hardship on my part. I have other interests that keep me well occupied." She could safely allude to her research without actually tipping her hand.

"Such as watercolor and arranging flowers."

"Not to mention walking around with a tome on my head."

"Yes, I can see how that would keep you busy." He paused and glanced at her bonnet, as if the imaginary book were sitting on it. "Would you read said tome?"

"Of course, especially if were something truly f ~ Cindy Anstey

But because I believe God's plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don't want to try to change God's mind - his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don't want to change God's timing - his timing is perfect. I want the grace to accept his timing. I don't want to change God's plan - his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit. Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope Receiving what is before me and fighting to walk in the path that is ~ Kara Tippetts

I was scared of the Bible - it seemed whenever I read it I got bad luck. Then I befriended a couple of Jesus's disciples and I used to show them modern life - how to run the hot and cold taps and things like that. They seemed alright but it didn't change my feelings about the Bible jinx. ~ Beth Orton

As we stand there, it hits me how quickly everything changes - how life is like peering into a kaleidoscope, and just as you're looking at a gorgeous pattern you think you'd maybe even like to keep around forever, the colors morph into something completely different, and there's no getting back to that first pattern. No matter how much you'd like to see it again. ~ Holly Schindler

How can I have both? This question will change your life. It will take you from a model of scarcity and limitation to a universe of possibilities and abundance. This ~ T. Harv Eker

A puma is not a bird," said Tobias, after a hundred paces. "It is a kind of cat - felis concolor. You may see it soon: it is moving along with us, on the right."
The word cat brought nothing into Jack's mind but a fleeting image of a shabby, brownish-black little creature called Tib that disgraced the drawing-room at home, and he plodded on in silence. Every hundred yards or so they changed shoulders, and during the third change there was a coughing noise to their right, a series of coughs, huge, deep, throaty coughs, that culminated in a shattering roar, unimaginably loud.
"Not a bird, Jack, you see," said Tobias.
"How big?" cried Jack, vividly alive now, with terror coursing up and down his spine.
"The size of an indifferent lion," said Tobias. "You can see him if you bend and look under the yellow bush. He is tearing up the earth, and biting it."
"Can he climb?"
"Oh, admirably."
"Toby, what shall we do?"
"Why, unless you wish to go and look at him, we had better go on. It is getting late. But do not hurry so, Jack, nor make jerking movements. If he should come out, take no notice of him, or look at him kindly - do not provoke him. He is not a froward puma, I believe. ~ Patrick O'Brian

You've always been so agreeable," he remarked with something of a rueful tone. "I don't understand why you haven't told me to sod off."
She couldn't help but chuckle. "Other than the simple fact that I would never say those words to anyone?"
He glanced at her, eyes sparkling. "Even so. I am humbled by your easy acceptance of me. I behaved abominably toward you years ago and yet you act as though nothing ever happened."
Rose twirled the handle of her parasol. "We cannot change the past, Mr. Maxwell. I reckon I would be a much happier woman if I could. No, all we can do is go forward."
His brow furrowed. "Does that mean you forgive me?"
She laughed again. "Yes, it does. I understand why you had to abandon your courtship after my father's misfortune and I do not blame you for it."
Kellan shook his head. "You are too good."
"No," she insisted with a sharp shake of her head. "I am not." Lord, if he but knew just how not good she could be! Of course, if they were married he'd realize that on their wedding night, wouldn't he? Or could she deceive him and make him believe she was a virgin? It wouldn't be right, but she would do it to spare his feelings, and keep her secrets. "But, I can be practical when the situation calls for it."
"Is that why you're here with me now?" he asked with amusement. "Practicality?"
Rose's smile was coy in reply. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I like giving the gossips something to natter about."
Kellan laughed alou ~ Kathryn Smith

A good part of why I never went back to England was part of that, I didn't want to be in those sort of flowery films. But I think it's a nice change of pace-I don't know how long it'll go for. There will always be the Merchant-Ivory/Kenneth Branagh movies, but there's something else now-really, it's always been there but the Americans getting to see it makes all the difference. ~ Tim Roth

Wow," I said. "That story is disturbing on so many different levels. One thing that's mystifying about Indian mythology is how often the names change. The skin color changes – she's golden, she's black, she's pink. Her name changes – she's Durga, Kali, Parvati. Her personality changes – she's a loving mother, she's a fierce warrior, she's terrible in her wrath, she's a lover, she's vengeful, she's weak and mortal, then she's powerful and can't be defeated. Then there's her marital status – she's sometimes single, sometimes married. It's hard to keep all the stories straight."

Ren snickered. "Sounds like a normal woman to me. ~ Colleen Houck

The thing about fate, Magnus: even if we can't change the big picture, our choices can alter the details.That's how we rebel against destiny, how we make our mark. What will you choose to do? ~ Rick Riordan

And what am I? I'm forever stuck in a nonexistent place where no time passes and I do so much and learn so much but I don't grow. I'm still teenage me wanting more. Wanting less. Wanting anything and everything and I think I should grow up now. Grow out of childish anxiety and sorrows for all things past and everyone has moved on from schools and neighbourhoods and I moved first and swore the loudest on never coming back but now I dream about all things past. Going back. How do you transition from being a lost teenager, to one of those calm and serene souls of integrity and certainty? Because that's what I must do, now, soon. Do others feel left behind too, or is it just me? Like the train left with everyone on it and I'm still standing on the platform trying to decide if I should watch the sky for another hour or go change my ticket. Maybe sometimes you need to just close your eyes and jump on the train without feeling ready, and grow your steady breath on the way. I think sometimes you don't know how much you're capable of until you're forced to grow into it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Acting is how I'll be able to change how Latinos are viewed in media and change how little girls see and talk about themselves. ~ Gina Rodriguez

They say that the world changes if you changed. That's also a lie. It's deception. The world will always try to drag you down and turn you in a caricature, plucking out any conspicuous components. Eventually, you stop thinking. The world - your surroundings - are only brainwashing you into believing the notion that "I changed and so did the world". The world, your surroundings, the masses won't change from those sentimental, hot­blooded, and idealistic outlooks.
I'll teach you how to *​really*​ change the world. ~ Wataru Watari

We spend a lot of time training and retraining. It's heartbreaking because our education system has failed all of us. And again you go to China, even Mexico, Brazil the education systems are valued - ours are not in this country at K-12 level. It's amazing how that change has transpired in my lifetime. ~ Douglas R. Oberhelman

We all die, and yet, so often we conduct our lives as if we were going to live forever. If you knew you were going to die one year from today, how would you change your life? ~ Matthew Kelly

Let me tell you something, Johnny. And don't you ever forget this. Men make their own puny little laws for the courts. Men bend those laws, break them, change them, corrupt them, turn them to their own use. But there are other laws. Basic laws. And the strongest law of all is survival. When your honor, your family, your home, your privacy, are threatened, you have to think of how you'll answer to your God. And to hell with men's chickenshit little laws. ~ Leonard Sanders

Faces change during sex, the features change and it would be a pity not to understand that, because with a man inside, moving on him, you can read his whole life in his face and it's a book that at that moment he can't close.

One needn't be afraid to talk, making love, because the voice we have when we make love is what is most secret in us and the words we are capable of the only shocking, final, total nudity available to us.

Making love is an endless attempt to find a position in which to merge with the other, a position that doesn't exist, but looking for it exists and knowing how to look is an art. ~ Alessandro Baricco

I can understand in some sense, having played the character, how unimaginably frustrating it is for people to tell you that you can't love who you love, because you ain't going to change it, and so they have to get out of your way. ~ Piper Perabo

So my approach to troubleshooting is I go into the plant. The first thing I do before we change anything on the equipment is make the people operate it correctly. Stop screaming, stop poking all the animals with electric prods, bring up smaller groups. And then I see how it works. Then I go, "Okay. He's balking at seeing a lady standing there writing down cattle IDs. All right, get a big piece of cardboard, I'll cover her up. He'll balking at the restrainer. I'll turn a light on the restrainer entrance. 'So I just do a lot of little things, a lot of modifications with lights and cardboard to see if I can get it to work. And then after I've done that I go, "Well this is hopeless. You're going to have to build a new system, or we can fix it with these changes." There's an awful lot of systems where it's certainly not a system I would want to copy, but I can make it work. The plant can live with it. ~ Robert Greene

Devon Franklin

Oprah: One of the things that you say that really struck me is that if we look at our life as a movie and God as the director of our movie, then we use our faith to help propel us forward in trusting in the director, correct?
Devon Franklin: Yes. Absolutely. Because what I realized is that sometimes we, in the most difficult times in our story, we begin to lose faith.
Oprah: And start to think we're in control of things. But all it takes is one wrong turn and we quickly remember that's just not true. Here is what I love. You say: "The truth is, you and I are in control of only two things: how we prepare for what might happen, and how we respond to what just happened. The moment when things actually do happen belongs to God."
Devon: Amen.
Oprah: Brilliant. Brilliant.
Devon: It's true. Because what happens is, the moments when things happen in our life, we don't control. In a moment, life can change for the better or what in the moment may seem for the worse. So our job is to prepare.
Oprah: Prepare for only two things.
Devon: That's right.
Oprah: Prepare for what might happen. And then how we respond to what has happened.
Devon: That's right. Because so many times what keeps us in that valley of depression, what keeps us in that valley of frustration, is our response to a moment and not recognizing that it is exactly that. It's a moment. It's one scene of your movie. And what makes a great movie are scenes ~ Oprah Winfrey

We hold each other and I'm shaking, because I'm thinking how close I came to losing her. If she'd been closer to ground zero in San Diego, she'd be dead now. So many people are dead, because for decades citizens like me and my dad, my uncle, and Lissa's parents - good people - quietly financed war after war because it's easier to pay our taxes than to risk our livelihoods by trying to change the system. Our silence let wealth accumulate in the hands of people like Thelma Sheridan, people who came to believe they could buy absolutely anything, even innocence. ~ Linda Nagata

Sensuality does not wear a watch but she always gets to the essential places on time. She is adventurous and not particularly quiet. She was reprimanded in grade school because she couldn't sit still all day long. She needs to move. She thinks with her body. Even when she goes to the library to read Emily Dickinson or Emily Bronte, she starts reading out loud and swaying with the words, and before she can figure out what is happening, she is asked to leave. As you might expect, she is a disaster at office jobs.

Sensuality has exquisite skin and she appreciates it in others as well. There are other people whose skin is soft and clear and healthy but something about Sensuality's skin announces that she is alive. When the sun bursts forth in May, Sensuality likes to take off her shirt and feel the sweet warmth of the sun's rays brush across her shoulder. This is not intended as a provocative gesture but other people are, as usual, upset. Sensuality does not understand why everyone else is so disturbed by her. As a young girl, she was often scolded for going barefoot.

Sensuality likes to make love at the border where time and space change places. When she is considering a potential lover, she takes him to the ocean and watches. Does he dance with the waves? Does he tell her about the time he slept on the beach when he was seventeen and woke up in the middle of the night to look at the moon? Does he laugh and cry and notice how big the sky is?

It i ~ J. Ruth Gendler

What had I intuited at last? Namely this: while nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, nothing is also more precious than independence and freedom! These two slogans are almost the same, but not quite. The first inspiring slogan was Ho Chi Min's empty suit, which he no longer wore. How could he? He was dead. The second slogan was the tricky one, the joke. It was Uncle Ho's empty suit turned inside out, a sartorial sensation that only a man of two minds, or a man with no face, dared to wear. This odd suit suited me, for it was of a cutting-edge cut. Wearing this inside-out suit, my seams exposed in an unseemly way, I understood, at last, how our revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding power. In this transformation, we were not unusual. Hadn't the French and the Americans done exactly the same? Once revolutionaries themselves, they had become imperialists, colonizing and occupying our defiant little land, taking away our freedom in the name of saving us. Our revolution took considerably longer than theirs, and was considerably bloodier, but we made up for lost time. When it came to learning the worst habits of our French masters and their American replacements, we quickly proved ourselves the best. We, too, could abuse grand ideals! Having liberated ourselves in the name of independence and freedom - I was so tired of saying these words! - we then deprived our defeated brethren of the same. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

Like the waves in the ocean, life changes every moment. ~ Debasish Mridha

If she herself could change so much in two years, perhaps so could Lysandra.

And for a moment, she wondered how another young woman's life would have been different if she had stopped to talk to her - really talk to Kaltain Rompier, instead of dismissing her as a vapid courtier. What would have happened if Nehemia had tried to see past Kaltain's mask, too. ~ Sarah J. Maas

We all have something about ourselves that we'd change if we could in a perfect world, be it our body image, our financial status, our relationship, whatever. I wanted to talk about how nobody's exempted from the realities of life and all those things. ~ Keri Hilson

Change always happens... We adjust to it. Somehow we figure out a way. We straighten what we can or learn how to like something a little crooked. That's how it is. Something breaks, you fix it as best you can. There's always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That's how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we're still alive. ~ Susan Meissner

Can violence and the use of force to effect change upon the universe be left to the young? Do they see what was, what is, and what might yet be? Have they suffered, watched evil fall upon the good, or good upon the evil?
Or should the burden of violence be left to those who can bear it most lightly - upon those who have closed their minds or their feelings? How can they understand the suffering that they must inflict?
Should the burden of force be laid upon the short-lived, who will not see the consequences of their actions? How can they dispense force with compassion if they can escape the knowledge of what they do?...
The greater the force brought to bear, the older and wiser must be the entity who wields it. Wisdom allows sorrow. Age allows experience, and knowledge reinforces wisdom and experience....
Those who would bear the burden of force must be those who are strong and do not seek it, for those who seek force would misuse it, and those who are weak would shy from what they must do....
Findings of the Colloquy
[Translated from the Farhkan]
1227-E.N.P. ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Yet like many other human traits that made sense in past ages but cause trouble in the modern age, the knowledge illusion has its downside. The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realise just how ignorant they are of what's going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map. People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming newsfeeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.
Providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel wrong views by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues such as Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we hold on to these views out of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don't like too many facts, and they certainly don't like to feel stupid. Don't be so sure that you can ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Now I know, you can't change what's happened to you or hide it, or spin it, or get over it. All you can do is hold it confidently knowing that the mistakes are yours but so too is the wisdom earned along the punishing passage. Suffering is the catalyst for transformation. The wounds don't define us; how we went about surviving does. Oddity, in this sickened society of medicated despair, is a blessed state. ~ L.M. Browning

Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance. ~ David W. Earle

Any sermon that tells listeners only how they should live without putting that standard into the context of the gospel gives them the impression that they might be complete enough to pull themselves together if they really try hard. Ed Clowney points out that if we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the Bible story (about Christ), we actually change its meaning for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to "try harder" rather than a call to live by faith in the work of Christ. There are, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: Is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do or basically about what he has done? ~ Timothy Keller