This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Prayer is not a vain attempt to change God’s will: it is a filial desire to learn God’s will and share it. Prayer is not a substitute for work: it is the secret spring and indispensable ally of all true work – the clarifying of work’s goal, the purifying of its motives, and the renewing of its zeal." - George Arthur Buttrick
"One does not fight to influence change and then leave the change to someone else to bring about." - Stokely Carmichael
"Change is certain, progress is not." - Edward Hallet "Ted" Carr
"The great man [is] an outstanding individual who is at once a product and an agent of the historical process, at once the representative and the creator of social forces which change the shape of the world and the thoughts of men." - Edward Hallet "Ted" Carr
"All theories, all values, all reforms, all revolutions, all change, and all actions are built on the shifting sands of custom and opinion, and the winds of doubt and new circumstances and considerations are always blowing, always rising." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"Just as life is defined as biological change and death as its lack, so meaning in life is characterized by the application of stable patterns to changing circumstances and the replacing of old patterns of understanding with new and exploratory ones. Meaning is found in the losing of it, the searching after it, and in the finding of it again. The meaning in your life is in flux and is to be found in the flux (the flow) of meaning, which is therefore itself a source of meaning in your life. All this does require, however, the developing of a tolerance for ambiguity, of a willingness to accept the inevitability of change and the precariousness of your present vision, and of an openness to the unending richness of your experience of the world in its manifold variety and diversity." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"To free yourself is to know that all views are foundationless in that they can never remove all doubt, can never show conclusively that they are the justifiably favored views. Nor can any view separate itself from the flux of change, from alterations of perspective or of information, from the awareness of alternative possibilities." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"Values change, just as the body of knowledge available to us changes, and it is imperative that we be not only open to the changes as they creep up on us but actually strive to play an important role in such valuational change." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"We are capable of finding unending meaning in a world of constant, shimmering, sometimes threatening change. The task is to keep the question of life in question, and to find in it an unending source of joy and possibility, even in the darkest of times. It is within the constant overcoming of our own limitations and habits, and of the established views of our age, that passive happiness and unreflective contentment are lost, then to be replaced by joyful activity and a glimpse of a broader, more enriching, and more responsible awareness than we have been capable of before." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all." - Carlos Castaneda, fully Carlos César Salvador Arana Castaneda
"Whoever hesitates while waiting for ideas to triumph among the masses before initiating revolutionary action will never be a revolutionary. Humanity will, of course, change. Human society will, of course, continue to develop – in spite of men and the errors of men. But that is not a revolutionary attitude." - Fidel Castro, fully Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
"Idolatry is the denial of all hope for the future. The idols of the past were worshipped by people who were afraid of change, who wanted things to remain the same, who did not want a future that was different, who found their security in the status quo. The same is true today." - Center of Concern NULL
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
"Now whether the difficulty is real or whether it is imaginary, the results are the same, you become whatever you think. If God is with you, how can you possibly feel inferior to anyone? You have equal access to all the good that comes from God. You can demonstrate your faith in His ability to give it to you by living His life. So change your thought patterns right now. Make up your mind to beat this feeling by faith in God, and you will. He can who thinks he can!" - Albert E Cliffe
"This empty world may change but Reality is the same. It has never been easy to know but Truth shines everywhere." - Cuu-Chi NULL
"If we want things to stay as they are, thing will have to change." - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
"The universal and the transcendent Cause of all things is neither without life, nor without reason and intelligence; nor is he a body, nor has he form or shape, quality, quantity or weight; nor has he any localized, visible or tangible existence… He suffers no change, corruption, division, privation or flux; none of these things can either be identified with or attributed to him." - Dionysus NULL
"Is there a spiritual reality, inconceivable to us today, which corresponds in history to the physical reality which Einstein discovered and which led to the atomic bomb? Einstein discovered a law of physical change: the way to convert a single particle of matter into enormous physical energy. Might there not also be, as Gandhi suggested, an equally incredible and [as yet] undiscovered law of spiritual change, whereby a single person or small community of persons could be converted into an enormous spiritual energy capable of transforming a society and a world?" - James W. Douglass
"An organism lives by growth, by processes of change, by powers of generation, but its interfusion with other organisms and with its environment, also by its `mental state’ in which is vested the unifying principles pervading all its parts and subdivisions, rising in man to the conscious mental state, to self-awareness, and with this self-awareness to advance further by directed effort." - L. Francis Edmunds
"Cultures can mix with one another. Explicit design is introduced to promote, improve, advance, and accelerate the evolutionary process of culture. A change brought about by a science and technology of behavior would correspond to a `biological mutation’ towards the better… Yet the final determining cause, whether genetic or cultural, is never an ethical or moral one, but always leads back to the environment. The world is a large-scale laboratory. Both the controller and the controlled are subject to conditioning. All life is conditioning." - L. Francis Edmunds
"Science has brought this danger, but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men. We will not change the hearts of other men by mechanisms, but by changing our hearts and speaking bravely… When we are clear in heart and mind – only then shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts the world." - Albert Einstein
"Change is not always progress… A fever of newness has been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress." - Henry Ford
"The only way to get rid of your problem is to change your belief, or reverse the false process of thought. Fear is always present when there is in harmony, and an affirmation will not in itself destroy fear. You must refuse to be intimidated by the seeming danger, whatever it is, and put your reliance on the Love of God. Then fear will begin to go." - Emmet Fox
"Truth is true because it is true – not because we make it so. Prayer does not change things for us, but it changes them by tuning us in to the eternal Truth. You have nothing to deal with but your own thoughts, and your own beliefs. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - Emmet Fox
"If, as Heraclitus said, “A man’s character is his fate” – that is, if our fate is largely determined by the habitual tendencies of our repetition compulsion-personality – then the power of consciousness is that it allows us to change impulses, we have what Kierkegaard called “the possibility of possibility”: the possibility of having a free choice and the moral responsibility that comes with it. In that sense, the fear of consciousness is ultimately the fear of moral responsibility, because if we own our anxiety, shame, and guilt, and allow ourselves to have full consciousness of emotions that motivate our behavior, then we will inevitably recognize the full weight of our responsibility for that behavior." - Elio Frattaroli
"The old view that the principles of right and wrong are immutable and eternal is no longer tenable. The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux." - James Frazer, aka James George Frazer
"Almost anything you do will seem insignificant but it is very important that you do it…You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"Be the change that you wish to see most in your world." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"I do dimly perceive that while everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"We must become the change we wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"The most powerful thing you can do to change the world is to change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people and reality to something more positive… and begin to act accordingly." - Shakti Gawain
"The purpose of growth: to maximize our ability to be loving, joyful and creative… Growth is not just about striving to be better. It is also about enjoying the moment and accepting yourself as you are (knowing that you are or will do your best to change what you can)." - Tom Gregory
"Paradoxically, then, the best life to live will be one that is constantly struggling to become a different sort of life, a life with more virtue and less enjoyment, with more to admire and less to envy. If that best of lives were to succeed in becoming what it strives to change itself into, however, it would not longer be the best of lives. It would then be a life purely of self-sacrifice, an unenviable life suitable only for admiration. So what life should we seek, then? If what we are asking is either what kind of life to seek in order to gain a purely enviable life, or what kind of life to seek in order to achieve a purely admirable life, for those questions, the answer is fairly easy. Only a life with both elements resonates with a full portion of good. And that life, I think we have to recognize, will also be a life in which the two types of good remain in tension; a life in which the enviable and the admirable are never quite reconciled." - Patrick Grim
"All are searching for a goal, but for the seeker, the openness to grow and change is a precondition for the successful discovery." - Os Guiness
"Too much to live with, too little to live for… In our own day this question of life purpose is more urgent than ever. Three factors have converged to fuel a search for significance without precedent in human history. First, the search for the purpose of life is one of the deepest issues of our experiences as human beings. Second, the expectation that we can all live purposeful lives has been given a gigantic boost by modern society’s offer of the maximum opportunity for choice and change in all we do. Third, our fulfillment is thwarted by this stunning fact: Out of more than a score of great civilizations in human history, modern Western civilization is the very first to have a no agreed-on answer to the question of the purpose of life… Most of us in the midst of material plenty, have spiritual poverty." - Os Guiness
"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect in human weakness and in human responsibility. Without a global resolution in human consciousness nothing will change for the better and catastrophe will be unavoidable." - Václav Havel
"`Time’ never changes because there is nothing to change. Change requires form; time has no form. Time is a concept of measurement, and concepts exist only as mental phenomena." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"Whereas Truth is complete and unchanging, on the contrary, man’s understanding and capacity for comprehension significantly advances and changes in all areas of knowledge. With it, significance and meaning become contextualized so that, although truth does not change, man’s understanding of it certainly does." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"We humans have the capacity to change the world with acts of love and kindness. Let’s start by teaching our children the importance of compassion." - Goldie Hawn, fully Goldie Jeanne Hawn
"You can’t change the music of your soul." - Katharine Hepburn, fully Katharine Houghton Hepburn
"Nothing makes the multitude angrier than when someone forces them to change their opinion of him." - Herman Hesse
"Life’s development has been much harder to definitely trace than that of the universe. This is because biology’s countless combinations and permutations are exceedingly convoluted compared to the linearity of physics or the predictability of chemistry. Life’s ability to mutate and change over successive generations has meant that investigators cannot simply extrapolate backwards to determine what previously existed, nor look forward and predict what might result." - David Hockey
"Subconsciously (particularly in the West), we still expect that limitless expansion - moving on, growing, and building a place of our own – will always be the intrinsic state of affairs. Expansion is necessary for life’s continued development – even expansion into space, throughout our galaxy and into others beyond. Evolutionary change occurs only when possible and advantageous; when niches open up, when food supplies vary, or when a mutation confers a bonus. If niches never alter, change brings penalty, not reward. If we choose zero growth, if we immobilize our niche, we will cease evolving. Without challenge, we do not advance." - David Hockey
"We ought to try to change the legend on our money from “In God We Trust” to “In Money We Trust.” Because, as a nation, we’ve got far more faith in money these days than we do in God." - Arthur Hoppe
"Rites [li] rest on three bases: heaven and earth, which are the source of all life; the ancestors, who are the source of the human race; [and] sovereigns and teachers, who are the source of government... Should any of the three be missing, either there would be no people or people would be without peace. Hence rites are to serve Heaven on high and earth below, and to honor the ancestors and elevate the sovereigns and teachers... Who holds to the rites is never confused in the midst of multifarious change; who deviates therefrom is lost. Rites - are they not the culmination of culture?" - Hsun-Tzu NULL
"The divine in the creation is only adequately represented when the whole of the time-process is gathered up into its final meaning and purpose, when, in fact, the mode of becoming is united with the mode of being. This I conceive to be the eternal world – not a world of immobility in contrast with a world of change, but a world in which the antinomy of becoming and being, of motion and rest, is transcended." - William Ralph Inge