The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Philosophical literature3 quotes
Whether we like it or not, change comes, and the greater the resistance, the greater the pain. — Alan Watts · 1995There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1513New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. — John Locke · 1690Political literature3 quotes
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. — Walter Bagehot · 1872There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1513Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787Biography1 quote
I know you're taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody. Always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business, but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government, or a way of doing business, or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reins—they have their hands on the switch—they go batshit crazy. — John Henry · 2011Biography (film)1 quote
I know you're taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody. Always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business, but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government, or a way of doing business, or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reins—they have their hands on the switch—they go batshit crazy. — John Henry · 2011Comedy1 quote
We fear change. — Garth Algar · 1992Comedy (film)1 quote
We fear change. — Garth Algar · 1992Drama1 quote
It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things. You don't want them changed. — Pontius Pilate · 1988Drama (film)1 quote
It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things. You don't want them changed. — Pontius Pilate · 1988Epic1 quote
It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things. You don't want them changed. — Pontius Pilate · 1988Epic (film)1 quote
It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things. You don't want them changed. — Pontius Pilate · 1988Folk music1 quote
Come Senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall. — Bob Dylan · 1963Political speech1 quote
It is both historically and biologically true that there can be no birth and growth without birth and growing pains. Whenever there is the emergence of the new we confront the recalcitrance of the old. So the tensions which we witness in the world today are indicative of the fact that a new world order is being born and an old order is passing away. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1956Post-colonial literature1 quote
Change is one thing. Acceptance is another. — Arundhati Roy · 1997Protest music1 quote
Come Senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall. — Bob Dylan · 1963Religious literature1 quote
Whether we like it or not, change comes, and the greater the resistance, the greater the pain. — Alan Watts · 1995