Quotes About Flexibility

Questions are as supple as willow wands, it's easy to brush by them and slip them aside, and no one the worse for it.

Early ideas are not necessarily true ideas.

From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed.

And yet they had adjusted with surprisingly little trouble to their new life, and most of them were quite sincerely happy. The adaptability of the human creature is such that they actually had to remind themselves on occasion of their desperate circumstances.

The rapidity with which one can completely change one's ideas . . . and accommodate ourselves to a state of barbarism is wonderful.

The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

The art of progress is to reserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.

Do not be too hard, lest you be broken; do not be too soft, lest you be squeezed.

embrase imperfection

Things can change over time, what looks fixed and pinned and closed in a life can change and open, and what's unthinkable and impossible at one time will easily be possible in another.

How adaptable human beings were without even realizing it, slipping blindly from state to state. One morning it was summer, the next you woke up and the whole year was over; one minute you were thirty, the next sixty, sixty next year quick as a wink, how fast it all was. How quickly and smoothly, yet how shockingly, when you thought about it, the seasons and the years gave way to each other

You can't stop change, the man says. It comes of necessity. You have to go with it and make something of what it makes of you.

the whole point of Bagatelle is that you trifle with the stories that people think are set in stone.

Not whole thing works as configured. Not everyone acts as trained.

In these days of the shattering of the old form and the building of the new, adaptability is needed. We must avert the danger of crystallisation through pliability and expansion. The "old order changeth," but primarily it is a change of dimension and of aspect, and not of material or of foundation.

But teaching was like a rubber band. It could expand and take in all kinds of experience, or it could remain, wound tight and unyielding, around the small package that was your life. Perhaps it had something to do with the kind of person you were. Perhaps it only depended on circumstances.

I don't want to be pinned down to any position. My position is the lack of a position, but of course you can't even talk about it; the minute you talk you spoil the whole game-Marcel Duchamp

The fun-seekers, I noted, were spontaneous and flexible. They approached each day and each situation with a willingness to ride whatever wave came along, just for the experience of it. The complainers, on the other hand, would only catch a wave if it was exactly to their liking. Anything else drew loud protestations about how it was not what they expected.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that's going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Our entire culture's infrastructure encourages and rewards a static, unchanging nature. You choose one degree, one career, one house, one spouse... You earn prestige by appearing to have it all figured out. The American Dream isn't having it all, it's knowing it all.

Being able to let go of a righteous position is a key to creating partnership.

You have a good argument, Karen. And, would you be willing to consider this from another point of view?