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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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.” Ian Fleming, “Casino Royale” - 1953

“I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“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

“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

“the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.” John F. Kennedy, “State of the Union Address” - 11 January 1962

“reading had changed forever the course of my life.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.” Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations” - 1861

“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

“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

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time life self mind men reading learning love future relationship leaving suffering world boredom experience pain history personality sweetness women

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Related sources

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (4)
Walden (4)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (3)
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On Nature (2)
Long Walk to Freedom (2)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2)
Ender's Game (2)
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Wuthering Heights (2)
The Stand (2)
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Much Ado About Nothing (1)
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