The Best 125 Quotes About Change to Inspire You Take Action
No matter where you come from or what you’ve been through, there are certain things we all share as human beings.
We all want to be loved and cared for. We all want to pursue our dreams and develop our potential. And perhaps most of all — whether we admit it or not — we all want to live in a better world. Is such a thing so much to ask for?
This means we’ll need to act collectively to change our existing reality.
So here are our Best 125 Quotes About Change to Inspire You to Change the World:
Famous quotes about change
As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Audrey Hepburn
At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about what you’ve done with those accomplishments. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.
– Denzel Washington (read more quotes)
Peace begins with a smile.
– Mother Teresa (read more quotes)
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
– Leo Tolstoy
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
– Nelson Mandela (read more quotes)
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi (read more quotes)
Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher, can change the world.
– Malala Yousafzai (read more quotes)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
– Stephen Hawking
Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.
– Wayne Dyer
Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.
– Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
– Norman Vincent Peale
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
– Woodrow Wilson
Change is inevitable. Change is constant.
– Benjamin Disraeli
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
– Charles Darwin
Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.
– Thomas Hardy
Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.
– Frida Kahlo
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
– William Blake
Quotes about change and growth
Change is necessary. It helps us grow, it makes the existing model obsolete. We can’t become better by staying the same, and sometimes you even have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to take positive steps in a certain direction. This is the spirit that helps push the human race forward. So while circumstances may evolve, friends leave and lovers disappear, we must remember that if you can find inspiration, there is room for improvement. The only lasting truth on this earth is change. We must accept it. Only what doesn’t change dies, what doesn’t bend, breaks.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
– Harriet Tubman
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
– Winston Churchill
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
– Victor Frankl
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
When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.
– Tuli Kupferberg
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
– Harold Wilson
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.
– Gail Sheehy
Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.
– Steve Maraboli
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
– Barack Obama
Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.
– Jim Rohn
The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.
– Kakuzō Okakura
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Dan Millman
Change is the only constant. There is nothing permanent except change.
– Heraclitus
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
– Henry Ford
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
– Leo Tolstoy
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
I have accepted fear as part of life, specifically the fear of change. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says “turn back.”
Erica Jong
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history.
– Joan Wallach Scott
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
– John F. Kennedy
Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.
– Billy Cox
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
– George Bernard Shaw
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
– Alfred North Whitehead
After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.
– Alfred Edward Perlman
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
– Henri Bergson
Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
– Jacob M. Braude
Things do not change; we change.
– Henry David Thoreau
We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
– Lynn Hall
You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.
– Heraclitus
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
– Pablo Picasso
Life is a progress, and not a station.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
All of us, every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all our lives.
– Steven Spielberg
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.
– Pearl S. Buck
Think progress, not perfection.
– Ryan Holiday
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
– Frederick Douglass
Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.
– Mignon McLaughlin
Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.
– Pauline R. Kezer
Growth requires both obsession and objectivity. The obsession to do things we don’t know are going to work. The objectivity to change things when they don’t.
– Jack Butcher
An hour of clear thinking, can yield a conclusion that changes your life.
– Johnny Uzan
You have to know who you are to grow your potential. But you have to grow in order to know who you are.
– John C. Maxwell
Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series… The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of skepticism.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.
– Mignon McLaughlin
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
– Ellen Glasgow
Positive quotes about change
There might come a time when you’ll find yourself resisting change. It happens to the best of us. Sometimes we get so attached to the way things currently are that we can’t even imagine them being different. However, when change is inevitable, there’s no need to panic because it can often have great outcomes.
If you need some help, consult our courage quotes. But we must be able to break from the past. Here are some positive quotes about change that will make you see things from a more optimistic point of view.
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
– John D. Rockefeller
Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.
– Robin Sharma
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
– Anne Frank
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
– Lao-Tzu
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
– Rumi (read more quotes)
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
– Jimmy Dean
We can change our lives. We can do, have and be exactly what we wish.
– Tony Robbins
Change always comes bearing gifts.
– Price Pritchett
The most beautiful and profound way to change yourself is to accept yourself completely, as imperfect as you are.
– Maxime Lagacé
You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.
– Jim Rohn
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
– Dalai Lama
Forget yesterday, it has already forgotten you. Don’t sweat tomorrow, you haven’t even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift: today.
– Steve Maraboli
Every positive change in your life begins with a clear, unequivocal decisions that you are going to either do something or stop doing something.
– Unknown
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Socrates
Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.
– Unknown
The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
– Steve Jobs
One small positive thought can change your whole day.
– Unknown
They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
– Confucius
There is nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction.
– Winston Churchill
Recognizing that you are not where you want to be is a starting point to begin changing your life.
– Deborah Day
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
– William Arthur Ward
Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.
– Bob Goff
All great changes are preceded by chaos.
– Deepak Chopra
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.
– C. JoyBell C.
All things are difficult before they are easy.
– Thomas Fuller
You must welcome change as the rule, but not as your ruler.
– Denis Waitley
Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream.
– Debby Boone
Don’t be afraid of change. You may lose something good, but you may gain something better.
– Unknown
There isn’t anything in your life that cannot be changed.
– Caroline Myss
You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits, and surely your habits will change your future.
– Abdul Kalam
For every positive change you make in your life, something else also changes for the better it creates a chain reaction.
– Leon Brown
Don’t let the concept of change scare you as much as the prospect of remaining unhappy.
– Timber Hawkeye
Motivational quotes about change
It’s never easy to change an old habit. It takes a lot of courage to make hard decisions. But when it’s time, we have to be able to embrace change. Read these quotes below, or consult our growth quotes or motivational life quotes pages for more.
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
– James Baldwin
If I am an advocate for anything, it is to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river.
– Anthony Bourdain
In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.
– Abraham Maslow
Nothing happens unless something is moved.
– Albert Einstein
When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.
– Chinese proverb
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. –
Andy Warhol
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right.
– Tony Robbins
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
– Anais Nin
Lack of emotion causes lack of progress and lack of motivation.
– Tony Robbins
Do not waste time on things you cannot change or influence.
– Robert Greene
You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.
– Roy T. Bennett
Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.
– Carol Burnett
That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.
– Estée Lauder
Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable.
– Denis Waitley
Let him that would move the world first move himself.
– Socrates
Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
– Simone De Beauvoir
You will never know yourself completely. You are life. You are ever changing. And that’s fine. Just keep going.
– Maxime Lagacé
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.
– Mother Teresa
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
– Abraham Lincoln (read more quotes)
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss (read more quotes)
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel
“I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” – Robert F. Kennedy
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over.” – Richard Branson
“You always have the choice between comfort and discomfort, mediocrity and growth, fitting in and standing out.” – Maxime Lagacé
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” – Tim Ferriss
“You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss
“The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.” – W.E.B. Du Bois
“Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.” – Oprah Winfrey
