William Stafford Quotes

The reality is, some people don't want you to change or go anywhere different.

I am really not interested or excited by repeating former successes.

It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I've always believed that if you don't stay moving, they will throw dirt on you.

Our movement has accomplished nothing—anywhere.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don't go right.

When someone doesn't react to changes, the changes turn against him.

Being complacent was never going to teach us anything.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere.

Failure in life does not matter; the greatest misfortune is standing still.

The only menace is inertia.

Innovation is very important to me, especially professionally. The alternative, standing pat, leads to complacency, rigidity and eventually failure.

Those who don't want to change, let them sleep.

The death knell for any enterprise is to glorify the past -- no matter how good it was.

There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo.

If things are not working out, they just stop going forward.

If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive.

If we fail to adapt, we fail to move forward.

The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit.

What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.

Nobody’s journey is seamless or smooth. We all stumble. We all have setbacks. It’s just life’s way of saying, ‘Time to change course.’

Nobody is going to move. Here is the story folks.

So often I heard people paying blind obeisance to change - as though it had some virtue of its own. Change or we will die. Change or we will stagnate. Evergreens don't stagnate.

It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.

We know - intellectually - that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive.