change   

Happy are they who learn to bear what they cannot change.

J.C.F. von Schiller

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We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers,
the school, the teachers--but never blame yourself.  It's never your fault.
But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change,
you're the one who has got to change.

Katharine Hepburn
Me: Stories of My Life

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

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

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.

Carl Jung

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

Aldous Huxley

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

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

Gail Sheehy

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

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

Carlos Castaneda

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

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

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

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it.  You have an
obligation to change it.  You just do it one step at a time.

Marion Wright Edelman

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

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

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

Very seldom will people give up on themselves.  They continue to have hope
because they know they have the potential for change.  They try again--not
just to exist, but to bring about those changes in themselves that will make
their lives worth living.  Yet people are very quick to give up on friends,
and especially on their spouses, to declare them hopeless, and to either walk
away or do nothing more than resign themselves to a bad situation.

Hugh Prather

Change is an easy panacea.  It takes character to stay
in one place and be happy there.

Elizabeth Clarke Dunn

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

Change is very hard, whether it's an individual desire or a culture-wide need.
We prefer the familiar, the known, and we give it value because of that.
   We avoid change.  We deny what we know in our bones.  We block
experiences, we ignore intuition, we pass by insight, we avoid transformation.
We hold on, afraid to change a pattern even when we are in pain.
   When you feel conflict, pain, tension, fear, or confusion, this is a change
trying to happen.  Don't avoid it or withdraw.  Don't turn to busyness or
denial.  Lean into the feeling, work on the change, take the risk.  It will give
you the fullness you seek.

Jennifer James
Success Is the Quality of Your Journey

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

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

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