Quotes About Flexibility

The most amazing thing about little children ... was their fantastic adaptability.

We measure success and depth by length and time, but it is possible to have a deep relationship that doesn't always stay the same.

There are people who not only strive to remain static themselves, but strive to keep everything else so ... their position is almost laughably hopeless.

Circumstances alter cases.

Better bend than break.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

Every dogma has its day.

I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

The world is quite right. It does not have to be consistent.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.

With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. ... Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today.

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Since changes are going on anyway, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires. Condi-tions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in; they are to be utilized and directed.

Today changes must come fast; and we must adjust our mental habits, so that we can accept comfortably the idea of stopping one thing and beginning another overnight.... We must assume that there is probably a better way to do almost everything. We must stop assuming that a thing which has never been done before probably cannot be done at all.

Much as he is opposed to lawbreaking, he is not bigoted about it.

Other times, other customs.

We live in an epoch in which the solid ground of our preconceived ideas shakes daily under our certain feet.

Only a weak mind seeks ultimate answers.

I said here's the river I want to flow on, here's the direction I want to go, and put my boat in. I was ready for the river to take unexpected turns and present obstacles.

I think the British have the distinction above all other nations of being able to put new wine into old bottles without bursting them.

Always take an emergency leisurely.