Change quotes, explained

Gandhi did write that changing ourselves changes how the world treats us. The neat one-line slogan is a modern paraphrase that does not appear anywhere in his writings.

Douglass's argument that freedom is never handed over by those in power. It has to be demanded, and the demand will be uncomfortable.

A saying from the recovery movement of the early 1980s. There is no trace of it in Einstein's papers, letters or interviews.

Great things grow from small beginnings, so start with what is right in front of you. The original says the journey begins “beneath one's feet.”

Latin for “the die has been cast.” Once dice are thrown you cannot take them back, so the phrase marks a decision that commits you to whatever happens next.

Latin for “love of fate.” Nietzsche used it for the attitude of wanting your life exactly as it is, hard parts included, instead of merely putting up with it.

When you get rid of what is bad, be careful not to lose what is good along with it.

Said by Mandela at the launch of an educational broadcasting project. For a man whose people had been denied decent schooling under apartheid, education was a form of liberation.

Scrooge, shown his own lonely grave, promises to live by the spirit of Christmas, meaning generosity and kindness, every day of the year, not just on December 25.

A business professor's 1963 summary of Darwin's ideas, applied to management. It was later shortened and credited to Darwin himself.

Dickens describes the years before the French Revolution as a time of extremes, then adds the sting: it was much like his own day, when people also insisted everything was either the best or the worst.

A direct challenge to the Soviet leader to prove his reforms were real by opening the Berlin Wall. Many of Reagan's own advisers wanted the line removed.

Everything flows and changes, so the river is never the same twice, and neither are you. The popular wording is a later paraphrase of Heraclitus's surviving fragments.

Everyone, king or cobbler, feels something on New Year's Day, because it is the day from which we all count our time and reckon how much is left.

Everyone makes good resolutions on January 1 and breaks them within days. Twain teases his readers that they will soon be “paving hell” with their good intentions, as they do every year.

Richard says the winter of the family's unhappiness has been turned into glorious summer by his brother, King Edward IV. The famous half-line is usually quoted as if it meant the opposite.

The poet asks the New Year's bells to ring away the old year's grief, quarrels and injustice and to ring in kindness, truth and peace.

Keep wanting more and keep being willing to look foolish by trying new things. Jobs borrowed the words from the farewell issue of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Spencer's phrase for natural selection: organisms best suited to their environment survive and reproduce. “Fittest” means best adapted, not strongest.

Armstrong's first words as he stepped onto the Moon. He said he meant “one small step for a man,” and the missing word has been debated ever since.

A promise that justice wins in the long run, even when progress is slow. King's compact wording condenses a longer image from an abolitionist sermon of 1853.

Burns, having wrecked a mouse's nest with his plough, tells her that the best plans of mice and men often go wrong, and that he is worse off than her because he worries about the past and the future.

Part of Santayana's argument that progress depends on memory. He was writing about how individuals and societies learn, not giving a warning specifically about politics or war.

Life moves through opposite seasons, birth and death, weeping and laughing, and each has its proper time. The passage is both comforting and a reminder that we do not control the timing.

A traveler picks one of two paths that were “really about the same,” then imagines telling the story years later as if the choice made all the difference. It is a poem about how we tell stories about our choices.

A line about inner character mattering more than past or future. It was written in 1940 by Henry Stanley Haskins, not by Emerson, who died in 1882.