Quotes for the Journey: Change Life belongs to the living, and those who live must be prepared for changes. unattributed

Why should anyone be afraid of change?  What can take place without it?  What can be more pleasing or more suitable to universal nature?    Can you take your bath without the firewood undergoing a change?  Can you eat without the food undergoing a change?  And can anything useful be done without change?    Don't you see that for you to change is just the same, and is equally necessary for universal nature?       -Marcus Aurelius     Not everything that is faced can be changed.  But nothing can be changed until it is faced.       -James Baldwin     Those who reject change are architects of decay.  The only human institution which rejects change is the cemetery.      -Harold Wilson     Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.       -Sydney J. Harris     Nearly all great civilizations that perished did so because they had crystallized, because they were incapable of adapting themselves to new conditions, new methods, new points of view.  It is as though people would literally rather die than change.       -Eleanor Roosevelt      I think that all human systems require continuous renewal.  They rigidify.  They get stuff in the joints.  They forget what they cared about.  The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past.  But we've got to move on.        -John W. Gardner

We have a hunch that it is possible to live a better, more balanced, and less stressful life, but many of us firmly believe that we don’t have the time or energy to make the necessary changes, even though perhaps just one small change could significantly reduce our stress levels.  Instead of striving for attainable incremental changes, we sometimes complain as if our lives are completely out of our hands!      -Gary Egeberg

God knows change can make your life richer.  Live for today but hold your hands open to tomorrow.  Anticipate the future and its changes with joy.  There is a seed of God’s love in every event, every circumstance, every unpleasant situation in which you may find yourself.  Don’t get stuck in a rut or hung up on an outdated blessing.  You serve a God of change!      -Barbara Johnson

In spite of all our hopes, dreams, and efforts, change is real and forever.  Accept it fearlessly.  Investigate the unknown; neither fear nor worship it.       -Joseph A. Bauer

Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things:  First, a dissatisfaction with self--a felt void or need; second, a decision to change--to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change--the willful act of making the change; Doing Something.       -Leo Buscaglia

If one changes internally, one should not continue to live with the same objects.  They reflect one's mind and psyche of yesterday.  I throw away what has no dynamic, living use.  I keep nothing to remind me of the passage of time, deterioration, loss, shriveling.       -Anais Nin

None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting to change all the tenor of our lives.       -Kathleen Norris

Change terrifies because the status quo is usually comfortable. We can pay the bills and keep food on the table the way things are, so why change anything? That's one way the military gets people to re-up:  focus on the pleasantness of the secure, steady income, and remind people of the risks of getting out into the real world.  But change shouldn't be terrifying if we trust life and trust God. Life goes on no matter what happens to us individually, and it's always rife with opportunity and possibility, yet somehow we focus on the limitations and impossibilities. If our lives change, then we have to examine the change and search out the positive in it, search out the potential in it.       -Tom Walsh

Those persons are happiest in this restless and mutable world who are in love with change, who delight in what is new simply because it differs from what is old; who rejoice in every innovation, and find a strange alert pleasure in all that is, and that has never been before.       -Agnes Repplier

Nature's mighty law is change. Robert Burns Be the change you want to see in the world. Mohandas Gandhi

One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past or in complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the essence of life.       -Anatole France

The difference between a grave and a rut are the dimensions. Dale Carnegie Nothing endures but change. Heraclitus

What people most need now is to apply their conversion skills to those things that are essential for their survival.  They need to convert facts into logic, free will into purpose, conscience into decision.  They need to convert historical experience into a design for a sane world.        -Norman Cousins

It seems necessary to completely shed the old skin before the new, brighter, stronger, more beautiful one can emerge. . . . I never thought I'd be getting a life lesson from a snake.       -Julie Ridge

To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.       -Helen Keller

We need changes from the duties and the cares of our accustomed everyday life.  They are necessary for healthy, normal living.  We need occasionally to be away from our friends, our relatives, from the members of our immediate households.  Such changes are good for us; they are good for them.  We appreciate them better, they us, when we are away from them for a period, or they us.      -Ralph Waldo Trine

Happy are they who learn to bear what they cannot change.      -J.C.F. von Schiller

Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.       -Gail Sheehy

Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding.  But for those on the spiritual path—for those who believe in God and the power of prayer—change is a fuller expression of life.  When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things.       -Emmet Fox

In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.        -Edith Wharton

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold onto.      -the Tao Te Ching

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.      -Carl Jung

Why should anyone be afraid of change?  What can take place without it?  What can be more pleasing or more suitable to universal Nature?  Can you take your bath without the firewood undergoing a change?  Can you eat, without the food undergoing a change?  And can anything useful be done without change?  Don't you see that for you to change is just the same, and is equally necessary for universal Nature?       -Marcus Aurelius

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life.  The only completely consistent people are the dead.        -Aldous Huxley

It’s been said that one reason people eventually stop growing and learning is they become less willing to risk failure by trying new ideas or experiences.  Change can be difficult and uncomfortable.  But if our ambitions are only to avoid the discomforts of life, we could soon find we have very little life at all.    God wants us to have the most joyful, fulfilling life possible, and sometimes that requires stepping out into the unknown.  Is there a new experience or idea you’ve been hesitant to pursue?  You’ll never know until you try.        - unattributed

Things don’t change.  You change your way of looking, that’s all.        - Carlos Castaneda

We have a hunch that it is possible to live a better, more balanced, and less stressful life, but many of us firmly believe that we don’t have the time or energy to make the necessary changes, even though perhaps just one small change could significantly reduce our stress levels.  Instead of striving for attainable incremental changes, we sometimes complain as if our lives are completely out of our hands!        -Gary Egebert

Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.        - Irene Peter

If you can’t change everything all at once, then at least work on changing something each day.  Become aggressive in your battle with the ego.  You probably don’t need all the things that it wants.  You need hope, discipline, creative expression, love, and serenity—these are the important things.  Remember, when you are balanced, one stepping stone will lead you to the next.  But you will rarely see the whole journey or all the answers at once.       - Stuart Wilde

Just when summer gets perfect—fresh nights, soft sun, casual breezes, crushingly full and quietly cooling trees, empty beaches, and free weekends—it ends.  Life is like that too.  Just when we get it right, it starts to change.  The job gets easy and we know just how to do it, and they tell us we’re retired.  The children grow up and get reasonable and they leave home, just when it’s nice to have them around . . . . That’s life on the edge of autumn.  And that’s beautiful—if we have the humility for it.        -Joan Chittister

We believe we can change things according to our wishes because that’s the only happy solution we can see.  We don’t think of what usually happens and what is also a happy solution:  things don’t change, but by and by our wishes change.        -Marcel Proust

Change and growth take place when a person has risked him or herself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his or her own life.        -Herbert Otto

As changes take place in my life, I continue to watch them truly work out for my good—if I can just wait on God to see me through.  What makes all the difference is trust—the understanding that God has a much bigger plan than mine even if I don’t understand it.  I’m grateful, yet sorry, that I have had to learn so many lessons by hindsight.        - Kathy Troccoli

In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity.  Without impermanence, there is no process.  The nature of life is change.  All hope is based on process.        -Rachel Naomi Remen

"Sweep me up and send me where you please."  For there I will retain my spirit, tranquil and content, as long as it can feel and act in harmony with its own nature.  Is a change of place enough reason for my soul to become unhappy and worn, for me to become depressed, humbled, cowering, and afraid?  Can you discover any reasons for this?        -Marcus Aurelius

Live for today but hold your hands open to tomorrow.  Anticipate the future and its changes with joy.  There is a seed of God's love in every event, every circumstance, every unpleasant situation in which you may find yourself.         -Barbara Johnson

Don't ever believe that you are going to be peaceful--life is not like that.  When you are changing all the time, you've got to continue to keep adjusting to change, which means that you are going to be constantly facing new obstacles.  That's the joy of living.  And once you are involved in the process of becoming, there is no stopping.  You're doomed!  You're gone!  But what a fantastic journey!  Every day is new.  Every flower is new.  Every face is new.  Everything in the world is new, every morning of your life.  Stop seeing it as a drag!        -Leo Buscaglia

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