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CERTAINTY
CHALLENGE --- CHANCE --- CHANGE

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CERTAINTY

see: "DOUBTS"
see: "FACTS"
see: "OPINION"
see: "SINGLE-MINDEDNESS"
see "BELIEF" for other related links
see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end
in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with
doubts he shall end in certainties.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_The Advancement of Learning_ [1605]

Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top
of one's voice.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Devil's Dictionary_ [1911]

'Tis impossible to be sure of any thing
but Death and Taxes.
--Christopher Bullock
_The Cobler of Preston_ [1716]

The world is made up for the most part of morons
and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in
their own opinions, never doubting anything.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.
_Personal Liberty_ [1928]

Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
--Will Durant (1885—1981)
American philosopher and writer.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.
--Thomas Howell
_New Sonnets_ [c. 1570]

When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the
most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without
that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure
them from the grossest absurdities.
--David Hume (1711—1776)
Scottish philosopher.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion because they are sure
that it is false, is to assume that *their* certainty is the
same thing as *absolute* certainty. All silencing of
discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_, ch. 2 [1859]

The greater the ignorance the greater
the dogmatism.
--Sir William Osler (1849—1919)
Canadian-born physician.
In the "Montreal Medical Journal" [1902].

So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain,
namely, that nothing is certain....
--Pliny the Elder [Gaius Plinius Secundus] (23—79)
Roman statesman and scholar.
_Natural History_, book II, ch. 7

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In all things it is a good idea to hang a
question mark now and then on the things
we have taken for granted.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.


The whole problem with the world is that fools and
fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and
wiser people so full of doubts.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.


Do not feel certain of anything.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.

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Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
--Gail Sheehy (1937— )
American writer and lecturer.
_Speed is of the Essence_ [1971]

Human being are perhaps never more frightening
than when they are convinced beyond doubt that
they are right.
--Laurens van der Post (1906—1996)
South African explorer and writer.
_The Lost World of the Kalahari_ [1958]

Doubt is not a very pleasant status,
but certainty is a ridiculous one.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.

A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious
of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears
to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he
grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the
same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents
as men of low and dark understanding because they
do not believe what he does.
--Isaac Watts (1674—1748)
English hymn writer.
_The Improvement of the Mind_, ch. I "General Rules" [1741]

When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few
years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was
not half so sure of most things as I was before; at
present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God
has revealed to me.
--John Wesley (1703—1791)
English preacher and founder, with his brother Charles,
of the Methodist movement in the Church of England.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
--William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
Irish poet and dramatist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
"The Second Coming" [1921]

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asseverate [uh-SEV-uh-rayt], transitive verb:
To affirm or declare positively or earnestly.

indubitable (adj.) [in-'du-bi-tκ-bκl]
Doubtless, without doubt, unquestioned; unquestionable.

ineluctable (adj.) [in-i-'luhk-tuh-buh l]
Inescapable, inevitable, or certain.



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CHALLENGE

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see: "COURAGE"
see: "DISCOVERY"
see: "DUELS"
see: "RISK"
see "SUCCESS" for other related links


If you are reading in order to become a better reader,
you cannot read just any book or article. You will not
improve as a reader if all you read are books that are
well within your capacity. You must tackle books that
are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are
over your head. Only books of that sort will make
you stretch your mind.
--Mortimer J. Adler (1902—2001)
American philosopher, educator, and editor.
_How to Read a Book_ [1940],
"Reading and the Growth of the Mind"

When I hear my friends say they hope their children
don't have to experience the hardships they went
through—I don't agree. Those hardships made us
what we are. You can be disadvantaged in many ways,
and one way may be not having had to struggle.
--William M. Batten (1909—1999)
American businessman; CEO of
JCPenney and Chairman of the NY
Stock Exchange.

Iacta alea est. (The die is cast.)
--Gaius Julius Caesar (100 B.C.—44 B.C.)
Roman military and political leader.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004].
Cohan & Major note that:
In 49 BC, by crossing with an army the River Rubicon, a stream
in northern Italy that marked the frontier between Gaul and Italy
proper, Caesar was effectively declaring war on Rome, because
his legal military power was restricted to Gaul.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
--attributed to Joseph P. Kennedy (1888—1969)
American financier.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of
challenge and controversy.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
_Strength to Love_, ch. 2 "On Being a Good Neighbor" [1963]

Because it's there.
(On being asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest.)
--George Leigh Mallory (1886—1924)
British mountaineer.
In "New York Times" [18 March 1923].

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you;
but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
--Don Marquis (1878—1937)
American poet and journalist.
"The Sun Dial", [column] in the _New York Sun_.

[Upon being challenged to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence:]
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
Quoted in _The Algonquin Wits_ (ed.) Robert E. Drennan [1968].

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they
are supposed to help you discover who you are.
--Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942— )
American singer, composer, scholar, and social activist.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor
spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they
live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
Speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois [10 April 1899].

If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people.
If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people
who disagree with you.
--Aaron Sorkin (1961— )
American screenwriter and producer.

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"Villanelle of Challenge"
By A.M. Sullivan (1896—1980)
American poet.

Go count the scars upon your soul and sing,
They are proof that you have met the foe,
A battered crown sits well upon a king.

Since Time makes honey out of sorrow's sting
And wounds turn purple for the public show,
Go count the scars upon your soul and sing.

While sword or ploughshare on the anvil ring,
Soon, come what may, the fretting world will know
A battered crown sits well upon a king.

And care no more for what the dawn may bring,
Yours is a realm no knave can overthrow,
Go count the scars upon your soul and sing.

Aye, sing the praise for every lonely thing
that breaks its heart on all we say or know;
A battered crown sits well upon a king
who stands aloof and fills his empty sling
with words and stones to meet fate
blow for blow;
Go count the scars upon your soul and sing,
A battered crown sits well upon a king.

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Cerberus (noun)
In Greek and Roman mythology, the three-headed
dog that guards the entrance to Hades.

gauntlet (noun) ['gant-let]
(1) The glove of a suit of armor.
(2) Two lines of tormentors with flailing sticks between
which someone must run as punishment or initiation.



CHANCE

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see: "ACCIDENT"
see: "CIRCUMSTANCES"
see: "DESTINY"
see: "FATE"
see: "GAMBLING"
see: "LUCK"
see: "OPPORTUNITY"


It is strictly and philosophically true in Nature and reason that
there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident
that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything
that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify
merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause.
--Adam Clarke (1762—1832)
British Methodist theologian.

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
"Conversation", l. 96 [1782]

Surely no man can reflect, without wonder upon the vicissitudes
of human life arising from causes in the highest degree accidental
and trifling. If you trace the necessary concatenation of human
events a very little way back, you may perhaps discover that a
person's very going in or out of a door has been the means of
coloring with misery or happiness the remaining current of his
life.
--Fulke Greville (1554—1628)
English philosophical poet.

Chance generally favors the prudent.
--Joseph Joubert (1754—1824)
French philosopher.

Many shining actions owe their success to chance, though
the general or statesman runs away with the applause.
--Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696—1782)
Scottish lawyer, agriculturalist, and philosopher.

Although men flatter themselves with their great actions,
they are not so often the result of a great design as of
chance.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.

No victor believes in chance.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_The Gay Science_ (Die frφhliche Wissenschaft), bk. 3 [1882]

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast.
In a pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.
--Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.—18 A.D.)
Roman poet.
_Ars amatoria_ "The Art of Love", iii, l. 425

In the field of observation, chance favors
only the prepared mind. (Dans les champs de
l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les
esprits prιparιs.)
--Louis Pasteur (1822—1895)
French chemist and bacteriologist.
Address in Lille, France [7 December 1854].

Discouragement seizes us only when we can no longer count on chance.
--George Sand [pseudonym of Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin] (1804—1876)
French author.
_Consuelo_ [1842]

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare
fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance,
when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
--Jeremy Taylor (1613—1667)
English Anglican clergyman and writer.

^

When Vera Czermak learned that her husband had
betrayed her, she decided she would end it all by
jumping out of her third-story window. Some time
later she awoke in the hospital to discover that she
was still alive, having landed upon her husband. Mr.
Czermak, however, was dead.
-- in John Train
_True Remarkable Occurrences_

^

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fortuitous (adj.) [for-'tu-i-tκs]
Coincidental, accidental; occurring by chance.



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CHANGE

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see: "ADAPTABILITY"
see: "GOOD OLD DAYS"
see: "GRASS (IS GREENER)"
see "LIFE" for other related links
see "MEMORIES" for other related links


...it does not require a majority to prevail,
but rather an irate, tireless minority keen
to set brush fires in people's minds.
--Samuel Adams (1722—1803)
American revolutionary leader.

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
--Matthew Arnold (1822—1888)
English Victorian poet and literary and social critic.
_God and the Bible: A Review of Objections ..._ [1875]

Such fire was not by water to be drown'd,
Nor he his nature changed by changing ground.
--Ludovico Ariosto (1474—1533)
Italian poet.
_Orlando furioso_ [1516]

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to
mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
--Henri Bergson (1859—1941)
French philosopher.

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Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
--Bible
"Jeremiah" 13:23


There is no new thing under the sun.
--Bible
Ecclesiastes 1:9

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Every age has its pleasures, its style
of wit, and its own ways.
--Nicolas Boileau-Desprιaux (1636—1711)
French critic and poet.
_L'art poιtique_ [1674], canto III

Because things are the way they are,
things will not stay the way they are.
--Bertolt Brecht (1898—1956)
German dramatist.

The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the
armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the
hosts of Error.
--William Jennings Bryan (1860—1925)
American Democratic and Populist politician
who ran for the presidency three times.
without success.
Speech at the National Democratic Convention,
Chicago, Illinois [1896].

A state without some means of change is without
the means of its conservation.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.

I'll turn over a new leaf.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605—1615]
Pt. 2 [1615], bk. 3, ch. 13

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse;
always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young
knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.

O tempora! O mores!
[Oh the times! The customs!]
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
_In Catilinam_, I, 1

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It is only the supremely wise or the
deeply ignorant who never change.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.


They must often change who would be
constant in happiness and wisdom.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.
(Quoted in Oliver Goldsmith, "The Citizen of the World or,
Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London,
to his Friends in the East" [1762], [number 123].)

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Alas! There is no casting anchor in the stream of time!
--Marguerite Blessington (1789—1849)
Irish novelist and poet.
_Country Quarters_ [1850]

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22nd Dec., 1900. The old century is very nearly out, and leaves the
world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire is playing the devil in
it as never an empire before on so large a scale. We may live to see
its fall. All the nations of Europe are making the same hell upon
earth in China, massacring and pillaging and raping in the captured
cities as outrageously as in the Middle Ages. The Emperor of Germany
gives the word for slaughter and the Pope looks on and approves. In
South Africa our troops are burning farms under Kitchener's command,
and the Queen and the two houses of Parliament, and the bench of
bishops thank God publicly and vote money for the work. The Americans
are spending fifty millions a year on slaughtering the Filipinos; the
King of the Belgians has invested his whole fortune on the Congo,
where he is brutalizing the Negroes to fill his pockets. The French
and Italians for the moment are playing a less prominent part in the
slaughter, but their inactivity grieves them. The whole white race is
reveling openly in violence, as though it had never pretended to be
Christian. God's equal curse be on them all! So ends the famous
nineteenth century into which we were so proud to have been born....

31st Dec., 1900. I bid good-bye to the old century, may it rest in
peace as it has lived in war. Of the new century I prophesy nothing
except that it will see the decline of the British Empire. Other worse
empires will rise perhaps in its place, but I shall not live to see
the day. It all seems a very little matter here in Egypt, with the
pyramids watching us as they watched Joseph, when, as a young man four
thousand years ago, perhaps in this very garden, he walked and gazed
at the sunset behind them, wondering about the future just as I did
this evening. And so, poor wicked nineteenth century, farewell!

--Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840—1922)
English poet and publicist.
_My Diaries, 1888-1914_ [1921].

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The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse;
always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young
knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.
Letters to his son [17 May 1750].

[O tempora! O mores!]
Oh, the times! Oh, the customs!
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
_In Catilinam_, Speech I, ch. I

As one gets older, one discovers
everything is going to be exactly
the same with different hats on.
--Noλl Coward (1899—1973)
English playwright, actor, and composer.

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Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change
their minds are incompetents in asylums, who can't, and those
in cemeteries.

I try to be a realist and appreciative of what you have to
do in the world in the light of changing conditions.

--Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896—1959)
American congressman and senator.
In _The New York Times_ [3 January 1965].

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I sometimes sense the world is changing almost too fast
for its inhabitants, at least for us older ones.
--Elizabeth II (1926— )
Queen of the United Kingdom [1952- ].

What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures
up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result
of public opinion, and the day after is the character of nations.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.

All is change; all yields its place and goes.
--Euripides (485?—406 B.C.)
Greek dramatist.


Change is not always progress. ... A fever of newness has
been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress.
--Henry Ford (1863—1947)
American car manufacturer.
_Ford Ideals_ [1922]

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 another.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1921.

He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed
and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.
--Sir David Paradine Frost (1939— )
British television host.

It's a long Lane that never turns.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_ [1732]

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We must be the change we wish to
see in the world.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
Quoted in "L.A. Times" [30 July 1989].


A small body of determined spirits fired by
an unquenchable faith in their mission can
alter the course of history.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.

-

Everything will change. The only question
is growing up or decaying.
--Nikki [Yolande Cornelia] Giovanni (1943— )
American poet and author.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate
ourselves; otherwise we harden.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.

Our own 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 (1917—1986)
American journalist.
In Larry Chang
_Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions
for Spiritual Healing_, p. 14 [2006].

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You cannot step twice into the same river.
--Heraclitus (c.535—475 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
In Plato _Cratylus_


Nothing endures but change.
--Heraclitus (c.535—475 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
In Plato _Cratylus_

-

-

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

--A.E. [Alfred Edward] Houseman (1859—1936)
English classical scholar and poet.
"A Shropshire Lad" no, 40, l. 5 [1896]

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Change your opinions, keep to your principles;
change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.

-

Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or
baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to
the same species as Shakespeare it is simply
disgraceful.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.


There's only one corner of the universe you can
be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.
_Time Must Have a Stop_ [1944]

-

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad
to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that
it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in
a new place.
--Washington Irving (1783—1859)
American author, essayist, and travel book writer.
_Tales of a Traveller_, preface [1824]

-

Every old man complains of the growing depravity
of the world, of the petulance and insolence of
the rising generation. He recounts the decency
and regularity of former times, and celebrates
the discipline and sobriety of the age in which
his youth was passed; a happy age which is now
no more to be expected, since confusion has
broken in upon the world, and thrown down all
the boundaries of civility and reverence.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In "The Rambler", #50, (English journal).


Change is not made without inconvenience,
even from worse to better.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_A Dictionary of the English Language_ [1755]


He who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to
seek happiness by changing any thing but his own
dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and
multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
"The Rambler" (English journal),
Number 6 [7 April 1750]

-

...We may dig in our heels and dare life never to change,
but, all the same, it changes under our feet like sand
under the feet of a sea gazer as the tide runs out. Life
is forever undermining us. Life is forever washing away
our castles, reminding us that they were, after all,
only sand and sea water.
--Erica Jong (1942— )
American novelist.
_Parachutes and Kisses_

'Plus ηa change, plus c'est la mκme chose.'
The more it changes, the more it is the same thing.
--Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808—1890)
French novelist and journalist.
"Les Guκpes" [January 1849]

The only thing constant in life is change.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.

I have had playmates, I have had companions;
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.
_Old Familiar Faces_ [1798]

In my youth ... there were certain words you couldn't say
in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't
say 'girl'.
--Tom Lehrer (1928— )
American songwriter and satirist.
Quoted in _Washington Post_ [3 January 1982].

[Concerning a group of friends in their late teens:]
The future held little interest for us back then. [. . . ] We were
arrogant enough to ignore the future. And young enough to
be certain that the present was something that would never
change.
--Barry Levinson (1942—)
American screenwriter and film director.
_Sixty-Six_, ch. 2 [2003]

A correspondent from Hamburg, speaking of the invasion of American
trade, says: 'Incidentally, it may be remarked that the typewriting
machine with which this article is written, as well as the thousands
— nay, hundreds of thousands — of others that are in use throughout
the world, were made in America; that it stands on an American table,
in an office furnished with American desks, bookcases, and chairs,
which cannot be made in Europe of equal quality, so practical and
convenient, for a similar price.'
--Jack London [John Griffith Chaney] (1876—1916)
American novelist and short-story writer.
_The War of Classes_ [1905]

We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"The Fire of Drift-Wood", l. 13
in _The Seaside and the Fireside_ [1850]

The foolish and the dead alone never
change their opinion.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
"Abraham Lincoln" [1864]

If you always do what you always did, you
will always get what you always got.
--Moms Mabley (1897—1975)
African-American vaudeville performer and comedian.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything.
They just cry over their condition. But when they
get angry, they bring about a change.
--Malcolm X (1925—1965)
American civil rights campaigner.
_Malcolm X Speaks_ [1965]

Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to
change; where we are right, make us easy to
live with.
--Peter Marshall (1902—1949)
Scottish-American preacher, author, and Senate chaplain.
Quoted in Catherine Marshall
_A Man Called Peter: The Story of Peter Marshall_ [1951].

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both
sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is
to face it.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_Cakes and Ale_ [1930]

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 (1901—1978)
American anthropologist.
Attributed in _Christian Science Monitor_ [1 June 1989].

Change is not progress.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one
generation often becomes the height of wisdom
in the next.
--attributed to John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
_Lycidas_ l. 193 [1638]

I never changed anything, except
my socks and my underwear.
--Robert Mitchum (1917—1997)
American film actor.

Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their places,
but believe not that man changes his nature.
--Muhammad (A.D. 570?—632)
Prophet to whom the religion
of Islam was revealed.

From the sublime to the ridiculous
is but a step.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].
To the Abbι du Pradt, on the 1812 retreat from Russia.

King David and King Solomon
Led merry merry lives,
With many, many lady friends,
And many many wives;
But when old age crept over them -
With many, many qualms! -
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
And King David wrote the Psalms.
--James Ball Naylor (1860—1945)
American physician and writer.
"King David and King Solomon" [1935]

-

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr (1892—1971)
American theologian.
"The Serenity Prayer" [1936]
With slightly different wording, the first four lines above were
attributed to Niebuhr in the "New York Times" on 2 August 1942.

& see:

Give me the strength to change the things I
can, the grace to accept the things I cannot,
and a great big bag of money.
--Unknown 13-year-old.

-

Things Ain't What They Used to Be.
--Ted Persons (fl. 1941)
American songwriter.
Title of song [1941].

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
--Cole Porter (1892—1964)
American songwriter.
_Anything Goes_ [1934 song]

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from
convention, largely because they regard such departure
as a criticism of themselves.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.

He who cannot change the very fabric of his
thought will never be able to change reality,
and will never, therefore, make any progress.
--Anwar Sadat (1918—1981)
Egyptian politician and Pesident [1970-1981].

-

Lucy:
Do you think anybody ever really changes?

Linus:
I've changed a lot in the last year.

Lucy:
I mean for the better.

--Charles Schulz (1922—2000)
American cartoonist.
("Peanuts" comic strip.)

-

-

All young women begin by believing they can
change the men they marry. They can't.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_On the Rocks_ [1933]


You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I
dream things that never were; and I say,
'Why not?'"
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
"Back to Methuselah" [1921]

-

-

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survived, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Oxymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
--Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822)
English poet.
"Ozymandias"

-

-

Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our
songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was
a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother's cooking
was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched
only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy
old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown
causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of
illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows
older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change,
particularly change for the better. But it is true that we have
exchanged corpulence for starvation, and either one will kill us.
The lines of change are down.

We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human
thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom
is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who
waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel
bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.

--John Ernst Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
_Travels With Charley: In Search of America_ [1962]

-

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you
wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself
as you wish to be.
--Thomas a' Kempis (1380—1471)
German ascetical writer.
_Imitation of Christ_, bk. I, ch. 16 [c.1420]

Everybody thinks of changing humanity and
nobody thinks of changing himself.
--Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910)
Russian novelist.

No matter how far you have gone
on the wrong road, turn back.
--Turkish proverb

-

Happiness ain't a thing in itself, it's only a contrast
with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon
as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast
dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have
to get something fresh.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


It used to be a good hotel, but that proves
nothing - I used to be a good boy, for that
matter.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_The Innocents Abroad_ [1869]


Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window by
any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
"Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
_Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894]


"Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of
them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had."

"Satan!"

"Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is
governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It
suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful
that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is
right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it.
The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized,
are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but
in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they
don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted
creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally
helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as
an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your
race were strongly against the killing of witches when that
foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics
in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of
transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in
twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And
yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them
killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side
and make the most noise -- perhaps even a single daring
man with a big voice and a determined front will do it --
and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and
witch-hunting will come to a sudden end."

--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_The Mysterious Stranger_ [1916], ch. 9

-

Our ancestors used to wear decent clothes, well-
adapted to the shape of their bodies; they were
skilled horsemen and swift runners, ready for all
seemly undertakings. But in these days the old
customs have almost wholly given way to new fads.
Our wanton youth is sunk in effeminacy, and
courtiers, fawning, seek the favors of women with
every kind of lewdness. ... They sweep the dusty
ground with the unnecessary trains of their robes
and mantles; their long, wide sleeves cover their
hands whatever they do; impeded by these frivolities
they are almost incapable of walking quickly or doing
any kind of useful work ... They curl their hair with hot
irons and cover their heads with a fillet or a cap.
--Orderic Vitalis (1075—c. 1142)
English chronicler and monk.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 219.

If you want to make enemies, try
to change something.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].

Severe change has psychological
effects about which we know very
little. Among other things, severe
change weakens, or even destroys,
tradition. Destroying tradition,
of course, was a prime objective
of modernism for nearly a century.
And today we're reaping the results
in terms of personal alienation
and social dysfunction. For tradition
is the outward expression of those
inner collective images that form
the cohesion of civilized life. Any
society that loses its traditions
weakens its psychological moorings.
So constant change, as a desired
principle, however convenient in
the short term, cannot anchor a
civilization for long.
--Wm. Van Dusen Wishard,
President of World Trends Research

You can't go back home to your family—
To a young man's dream of fame and glory,
To the country cottage away from strife and conflict,
To the father you have lost,
To the old forms and systems of things,
Which seemed everlasting but are changing all the time.
--Thomas Wolfe (1900—1938)
American novelist.
_You Can't Go Home Again_ [1940]

-

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to
change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the
nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change
the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change
is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had
changed myself, I could have made an impact on my
family. My family and I could have made an impact on
our town. Their impact could have changed the nation
and I could indeed have changed the world.
--anon.

-----

apostasy [uh-POS-tuh-see], noun:
Total desertion or departure from one's faith, principles, or party.
Ex.: The French were advancing the holy cause of liberty;
any American who criticized them was guilty of "apostasy"
and "heresies."
--Richard Brookhiser, "In Love With Revolution",
_New York Times_ [17 November 1996]

capricious [kuh-PRISH-us; -PREE-shus], adjective:
Apt to change suddenly; whimsical; changeable.

deracinate [dee-RAS-uh-nayt], transitive verb:
1. To pluck up by the roots; to uproot; to extirpate.
2. To displace from one's native or accustomed environment.
Ex.: In the People's Republic, communism's utilitarian bent
first poisoned the culinary arts and then, in the Cultural
Revolution of the 1960s, tried to deracinate what were
regarded as the insidious strains of China's former
culture.
--Benjamin and Christina Schwarz, "Going All Out for
Chinese," _The Atlantic_ [January 1999]

interpolate [in-TUR-puh-layt], transitive verb:
1. To alter or corrupt (as a book or text) by the insertion of
new or foreign matter.
2. To insert (material) into a text or conversation.
3. To insert between other elements or parts.
intransitive verb:
To make insertions.

labile (adj.) ['ley-bIl or 'ley-bκl]
Changeable, unstable; apt to slip away.

neoteric
[ee-uh-TER-ik], adjective:
Recent in origin; modern; new.
Ex.: Electronic books, they say, are asking them to make
a mental transition -- to veer from their ingrained
appreciation for the printed books that fill our nation's
more than 120,000 public, academic and special interest
libraries -- to depend on a neoteric gizmo that disrupts
the sacred union between man and book.
--Charlotte Moore, "Bedtime for binderies?" Austin
"American Statesman," [28 July 2000]

permutation (noun)
1. The act, process, or result of change; transformation.
Syn.: metamorphosis, change
2. The act of changing the order of some or all of the
elements in a mathematical series, or any of the arrangements
that can result from this act.

protean [PRO-tee-un; pro-TEE-un], adjective:
1. Displaying considerable variety or diversity.
2. Readily assuming different shapes or forms.
Ex. 1 : "The [Broadway] musical was ceaselessly protean in these years,
usually conventional but always developing convention, twisting it, replacing
it."
--Ethan Mordden, "Coming Up Roses"
Ex. 2 : "He was a protean character who constantly adapted to his
environment."
--David Maraniss,
"The Clinton Enigma"
Protean is derived from Proteus, an ancient Greek god who had the
ability to change his shape at will.

transmute [trans-MYOOT; tranz-], transitive verb:
1. To change from one nature, form, substance, or
state into another; to transform.
2. To undergo transmutation.
Ex.: It now seems as if she no longer had the strength
or will to transmute life into art.
--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Changes Not for the
Better", New York Times, February 28, 1974

truncate (transitive verb)
Forms: truncated; truncating
1 : to shorten by or as if by cutting off
2 : to replace (an edge or corner of a crystal) by a plane
truncation: noun

vagary (noun)
An unpredictable or eccentric change, action, or idea.

vicissitude [vih-SIS-ih-tood; -tyood], noun:
1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another;
alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
3. A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability
in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one
condition to another).
Ex.: This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk
at last into abject and hopeless poverty.
--Thomas Macaulay

volte-face [vawlt-FAHS; vawl-tuh-], noun:
An about-face; a reversal, as in policy or opinion.

watershed (noun) ['wa-dκr-shed]
(1) A ridge dividing the water which drains into one
river system from that draining into another;
(2) a critical turning point.


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