Quotes About Flexibility

People can deal with a lot of change if it is coherent and part of a larger whole. But adding unrelated and unexpected changes, even small ones, can push people to the breaking point.

Review policies and procedures to see that they are adequate to deal with the confusing fluidity of the neutral zone. The "rules" under which you operate were set up to govern ongoing operations when things weren't changing as much as they are now.

Capitalize on the break in normal routines that the neutral zone provides to do things differently and better. In the neutral zone the restraints on innovation are weakened. With everything up in the air anyway, people are more willing than usual to try new things, and should be encouraged to do so.

Always consider the possibility that you may be wrong. Especially when you are absolutely certain you are right.

One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Two-thirds of 2001 is realistic hardware and technology to establish background for the metaphysical, philosophical, and religious meanings later.

The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

Weep not that the world changes -did it keep a stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

Be attached to nothing and open to everything.

William Frederick Halsey (Jr.)

We must dare to think unthinkable thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

Whatever necessities you require, work to get them. If you fail to get something, then smile and try again in a different way. If you succeed, then enjoy what you get, but without attachment.

The acid test is that all paranoids and fundamentalists lack a sense of humor, for humor is a chaos flux and flexibility, of ambiguity and multi-dimensionality, and that kind of erotic liveliness is precisely what the fundamentalist is trying to eliminate in holding rigidly to doctrine.

To give meaning to the Constitution, it is necessary to give it a flexible interpretation, responsive to changing times. The framers could not have foreseen the problems and issues that face our nation today, and the Constitution should not be interpreted as if they had.

The heart is a rubber ball. No matter how hard it's crushed, it bounces back.

The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.

Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.

The measure of (mental) health is flexibility (not comparison to some 'norm'), the freedom to learn from experience Ã¢â'¬Â¦ to be influenced by reasonable arguments Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and the appeal to the emotions Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and especially the freedom to cease when sated. The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns. Lawrence Kubie

How do you teach a classroom of Sybils who are breaking apart and reforming right in front of you?

There's a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you're self-propelled and decide exactly where to go. If you see something that catches your eye to the left, you can veer off there, which isn't so easy in a car, and you can't cover as much ground walking.

There's always room for Jell-O

The future is even more fungible than the past: We can make it up, assert it will be so, and no one can say it won't happen with any surety. Herman Melville, in talking about history, said that the past is the textbook of tyrants, while the future is the bible of the free.

Living organisms are constructed, for the most part, from compounds of carbon and hydrogen. Carbon is critical because of its astonishing flexibility. Add hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur and we can account for 99 percent of the dry weight of all living organisms.

As I like to say, it's important to be right at the end of a meeting, not at the beginning.