150+ Best Change Quotes That Will Change The Way You Think

You ever felt overwhelmed by the whirlwind of change that life throws at you. The ancient philosopher Heraclitus captured this universal experience when he stated that change is the only constant. 

As we face unprecedented challenges and transformations in the 21st century, it’s crucial to find solace and perspective in the wisdom of those who have explored this theme before us. This article presents a collection of 150+ enlightening change quotes that will empower you to embrace the unknown and view change as an opportunity for growth and renewal.

Change Quotes

• You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
• Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
• Don’t think of cost.  Think of value.
• Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
• Too many people buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t know.  Read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
• No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
• If a person wants to be a part of your life, they will make an obvious effort to do so.  Think twice before reserving a space in your heart for people who do not make an effort to stay.
• Making one person smile can change the world – maybe not the whole world, but their world.
• Saying someone is ugly doesn’t make you any prettier.
• The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well.
• Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.
• The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
• It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
• As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones.
• Making a hundred friends is not a miracle.  The miracle is to make a single friend who will stand by your side even when hundreds are against you.
• Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it means you are strong enough and smart enough to let go and move on.
• Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, etc…
• If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
• Don’t choose the one who is beautiful to the world; choose the one who makes your world beautiful.
• Falling in love is not a choice.  To stay in love is.
• True love isn’t about being inseparable; it’s about two people being true to each other even when they are separated.
• While you’re busy looking for the perfect person, you’ll probably miss the imperfect person who could make you perfectly happy.
• Never do something permanently foolish just because you are temporarily upset.
• You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them.  Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
• In life, if you don’t risk anything, you risk everything.
• When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
• Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
• There isn’t anything noble about being superior to another person.  True nobility is in being superior to the person you once were.
• Trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
• You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you are now.

Read More: Quotes About Strength And Courage To Inspire You

On Changing Your Mindset

• “Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you’ve changed, by believing. Once you’ve changed, other things start to follow. Isn’t that the way it works?” -Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard
• “What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” -Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
• “Words are where most change begins.” -Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance
• “There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely what it is, and we cannot change it. But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future.” -Eleanor Brown, The Weird Sisters
• “I have come to believe that while the past is unchangeable, our perceptions of it are malleable.” -Nicholas Sparks, The Wedding
• “Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.” -Tara Westover, Educated
• “Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.” -Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
• “Gratitude can transform any situation. It alters your vibration, moving you from negative energy to positive. It’s the quickest, easiest, most powerful way to effect change in your life—this I know for sure.” -Oprah Winfrey, What I Know for Sure
• “It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change.” -Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
• “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” -Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

On Embracing Change Quotes

• “The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
• “We should strive to welcome change and challenges, because they are what help us grow.” -H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
• “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” -Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
• “Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another,” -Emily Henry, Happy Place
• “A change is as good as a rest.” -Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
• “Most people’s problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.” -Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
• “We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming—well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” -Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
• “If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.” -Wendy Mass, The Candymakers
• “You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” -Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
• “You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you.” -Kiera Cass, The Elite
• “Can’t say it often enough—change your hair, change your life.” -Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice
• “It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same thing for the length of our lives.” -Gabrielle Zevin, 

On The Nature 0f Change Quotes

• “What she had learned was that life, any life, was death and rebirth, death and rebirth. Everything always changed.” -Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
• “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” -Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
• “You’re always you, and that don’t change, and you’re always changing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” -Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
• “Change is freedom, change is life.” -Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
• “And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.” -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
• “Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.” -Michelle Obama, Becoming
• “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.” -Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• “I don’t like knowing people in the context of things. ‘Oh, that’s the person I work out with. That’s the person I’m in a book club with. That’s the person I did that show with.’ Because once the context ends, so does the friendship.” -Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
• “Unexpected goodness is as large and overwhelming as unexpected tragedy.” -Nora McInerny, No Happy Endings
• “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.” -Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym
• “The world doesn’t change in front of your eyes, it changes behind your back.” -Terry Hayes, I Am Pilgrim
• “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
• “I’ve tried in this telling, time and time again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there’s also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing’s going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.” -Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
• “Some changes happen deep down inside of you. And the truth is, only you know about them. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” -Judy Blume, Tiger Eyes
• “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.” -Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
• “She was no longer who she used to be, and she wasn’t yet whoever she was becoming.” -Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

Read Also: Self Love Quotes To Boost Your Mood & Confidence

Change Quotes About Life

• “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
• “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” – Rick Warren
• “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.” – Shonda Rhimes
• “You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” – Diane von Furstenberg
• “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you… never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
• “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown
• “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experiences that reveals the human spirit.” – e.e. cummings
• “If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” – Kevin Ngo
• “It is never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot
• “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” – Dolly Parton

Quotes About Change

• People are more what they hide than what they show.
• 32. Sometimes people don’t notice the things others do for them until they stop doing them.
• Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.
• 34. Being alone does not mean you are lonely, and being lonely does not mean you are alone.
• Love is not about sex, going on fancy dates, or showing off.  It’s about being with a person who makes you happy in a way nobody else can.
• Anyone can come into your life and say how much they love you.  It takes someone really special to stay in your life and show how much they love you.
• Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.  Don’t save it for a special occasion; today is special.
• Love and appreciate your parents.  We are often so busy growing up; we forget they are also growing old.
• When you have to start compromising yourself and your morals for the people around you, it’s probably time to change the people around you.
• Learn to love yourself first, instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.
• When someone tells you, “You’ve changed,” it might simply be because you’ve stopped living your life their way.
• Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.
• Be happy.  Be yourself.  If others don’t like it, then let them be.  Happiness is a choice.  Life isn’t about pleasing everybody.
• When you’re up, your friends know who you are.  When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
• Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems; look for someone who will face them with you.
• If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him.
• No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life.  Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
• The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
• Many people are so poor because the only thing they have is money.
• Learn to appreciate the things you have before time forces you appreciate the things you once had.

Famous Quotes About Change

• “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou
• “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway
• “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” – Carrie Fisher
• “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” – Abraham Maslow
• “We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Oprah Winfrey
• “When we’re growing up, there are all sorts of people telling us what to do when really what we need is space to work out who to be.” – Elliot Page
• “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass
• “Permit yourself to change your mind when something is no longer working for you.” – Nedra Glover Tawwab
• “Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb
• “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

On Fear Of Change

• “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” -Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• “Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change—and change is what we’re chemically designed to do.” -Bonnie Garmus, Lesson in Chemistry
• “We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same.” -Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
• “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” -Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
• “Change isn’t always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation, and to others, like a pearl.” -Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
• “The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.” -Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder
• “Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.” -Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
• “The key to change is letting go of the fear.” -Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six
• “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
• “You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.” -Sue Grafton, T Is for Trespass
• “Who are you when you can no longer be the thing you’ve always been, the thing you’ve trained to be?” -Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex, Spare
• “Some people will always fear change. But we can’t indulge them.” -Veronica Roth, Allegiant

On Making Change Happen

• “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” -Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
• “If you’re serious about changing your life, you’ll find a way. If you’re not, you’ll find an excuse.” -Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass
• “Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.” -Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
• “Whatever’s back there don’t matter. It’s what’s ahead of you that counts.” -James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
• “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” -Maria Bamford, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult
• “They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world … I think that’s crap. I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing.” -Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes
• “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” -A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
• “You cannot change what you are, only what you do.” –Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
• “As for opportunity, she knew better than anyone: You had to make it for yourself.” -Leigh Bardugo, Hell Bent
• “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” —Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
• “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” -Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
• “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” -Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala
• “You can’t stop the future, you can’t rewind the past, the only way to learn the secret … is to press play.” -Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
• “Today I am in control because I want to be. I have my fingers on the switch, but have lived a lifetime ignoring the control I have over my own world. Today is different.” -A. S. King, Please Ignore Vera Dietz

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Conclusion

Embracing change can often feel daunting, but it also offers a unique opportunity for personal transformation and growth. The insights gleaned from these 150+ quotes serve as guiding lights, reminding us that every shift comes with the chance to reshape our lives in profound ways. 

As you navigate your own journey, let the wisdom of philosophers, leaders, and visionaries inspire you to take bold steps toward positive change. Remember that transformation is not merely about adjustment; it’s about flourishing in the face of uncertainty. Dive into these powerful quotes and begin your path toward embracing change with open arms.