No matter your political leanings, the installation of a new president will likely bring change to the federal government. Perhaps your department director will be replaced, or the priorities of your agency will change. In times of transition, it’s important not to fear but rather embrace change and to keep an eye on the future. Below are some inspirational quotes to get you into that mindset.
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future. – John F. Kennedy
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. – Maya Angelou
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. – Charles Darwin
You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler. – Denis Waitley
I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship. – Louisa May Alcott
Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination. – Mae Jemison
The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. – Bill Clinton
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished. – Ben Franklin
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. – Buckminster Fuller
Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. – Margaret Mead
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. – Georg C. Lichtenberg
Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. – Thich Nhat Hanh
We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change. – Sheryl Sandberg
Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use. – Ruth Gordon
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another. – Anatole France
You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through. – Rosalynn Carter
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu
Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you. – Caroline Myss
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. – Helen Keller
Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth. – Bradley Whitford
When in doubt, choose change. – Lily Leung
The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. – Barack Obama
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. – Marie Curie
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. – Samuel Johnson
What quotes help you move through change? Share them in the comments.
Benjamin Franklin noted change leader said this in his 1750 autobiography about American Indians.
“If it be the design of Providence to extirpate these Savages in order to make room for cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means.”
What quotes get me through change. Quotes from leaders who don’t view me as expendable and prone to alcoholism
I guess the more things change the more things stay the same about American Indians/Alaska Natives.
Really helpful!
Philippians 4:13
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
The Darwin quote is a common misquotation, It’s actually from a professor in the 1960’s paraphrasing Origin of Species. Adapting to change might help in Natural Selection, but it can also be a species’ blind luck to have beneficial mutations.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/04/adapt/
Your list of quotes is still a nice collection though.
“We are the ones we’re waiting for.” – a Hopi Elder
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer
A few of my favorites on change …
“It’s hard to live with change, but it’s impossible to live without it.” Ed Cole
“To a disciple who was forever complaining about others the Master said, ‘If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.’” Anthony de Mello
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Gen Eric Shinseki
“I wake up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult.” E. B. White (1899-1985) Writer
“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson made alot of enemies among those who fought for a more inclusive and just world.
He was an adamant opponent of women’s suffrage and did not come around to the right side of the issue until he needed half of the country’s population to support the World War I.
As far as race relations were concerned, Wilson regularly butted heads with African American civil rights icons of his day like W.E.B Dubois and as a Southerner, did not support equal rights for African Americans. Wilson’s Cabinet members were known for the segregation of their offices. In his first year as President, he signed a bill outlawing inter-racial marriages in Washington, DC. He also introduced a federal hiring policy to require applicants to submit photos. This ploy was used to weed out African American applicants.
How about his statement about the achievement gap: “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
The FBI got its start investigating Communists through suppression of civil liberties under Mr. Wilson’s administration.
Wilson’s FBI investigated African Americans working for civil rights and did not investigate whites who were violating African American civil rights.
Some historians think that the USA could have avoided involvement in Southeast Asia if Wilson had been more sensitive to Vietnam’s request for independence from France during the 1918 Treaty of Versailles negotiations.
Wilson aided and abetted multi-nationalism when First National Bank of NY helped encourage Wilson’s intervention in Haiti.
Even though the Constitution states that only Congress can declare war, Wilson in 1918 hid our nation’s secret war against Russia. Women’s suffragist advocate Helen Keller blew the whistle on these shenanigans. It is ironic that Keller and Wilson occupy the same burial site at the National Cathedral.
Wilson’s postmaster general suppressed the mail of socialist, anti-British, pro-Irish, and others who threatened his World War I efforts.
A circle of words mean nothing if you don’t let them out…
Words that breathe