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“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“And we change people through conversation, not through censorship.” Jay-Z, “Decoded” - 2010

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“So do flux and reflux—the rhythm of change—alternate and persist in everything under the sky.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” Karl Marx, “Das Kapital” - 1867

“The universe is transformation: life is opinion.” Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” - c. 170 - 180

“It is a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“The future isn't set in stone. Things change.” Stephenie Meyer, “Twilight” - 2005

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” - 1975

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” - 1818

“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning . . . but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“I never change, except in my affections.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.” John Steinbeck, “The Winter of Our Discontent” - 1961

“Things do not change; we change.” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them” George R. R. Martin, “A Clash of Kings” - 1999

“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“a person can’t change all at once.” Stephen King, “The Stand” - 1978

“The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.” Ray Bradbury, “Dandelion Wine” - 1957

“You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless.” George R. R. Martin, “A Game of Thrones” - 1996

“The earth does not want new continents, but new men.” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“if hawks have always had the same character why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs?” Voltaire, “Candide” - 1759

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“Only a crisis— actual or perceived—produces real change.” Milton Friedman, “Capitalism and Freedom” - 1962

“One can begin so many things with a new person! —even begin to be a better man.” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“It is in changing that things find repose.” Heraclitus, “On Nature” - c. 535 – c. 475 BCE

“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night” - 1623

“Anything that's mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue.” William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night” - 1623

“Presently a vagrant poodle dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change.” Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” - 1876

“Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm...” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely.” Charles Dickens, “Oliver Twist” - 1838

“Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.” Aristotle, “Politics”

“In fact, once he is motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I call myself the best example of that.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“Having begun to love you, I love you for ever—in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.” George MacDonald, “Lilith” - 1895

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“And I say to myself as I watch her: 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, “The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard” - 1881

“Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labours in vain, and how shall we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?” Samuel Johnson, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia” - 1759

“Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!” Kenneth Grahame, “The Wind in the Willows” - 1908

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time life mind self men learning love future relationship reading boredom experience pain sweetness women wisdom courage self-knowledge foolishness leadership

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Lewis Carroll (4)
Henry David Thoreau (4)
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William Shakespeare (3)
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John Green (2)
Heraclitus (2)
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Related sources

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (4)
Walden (4)
Kafka on the Shore (3)
Twelfth Night (2)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (2)
A Game of Thrones (2)
The Fault in Our Stars (2)
On Nature (2)
Long Walk to Freedom (2)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (2)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2)
Letters to a Young Poet (2)
Wuthering Heights (2)
The Stand (2)
Much Ado About Nothing (1)
Pride and Prejudice (1)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1)
Man and Superman (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
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