Adaptation Quotes

• Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.

  Henry Miller

  Inspirational, Progress, Daring

  Henry Miller (1959). “The Henry Miller Reader”, p.251, New Directions Publishing

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• Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.

  John Laroche

  Mean, Profound, World

  10 Copy quote

• The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Change, Wisdom

  274 Copy quote

• When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  436 Copy quote

• You are what you love. Not what loves you.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Love You, What You Love, Adapting

  Charlie Kaufman (2001*). “Adaptation: Screenplay”

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• The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.

  Dave Smalley

  Life, Strong, Acceptance

  26 Copy quote

• Adaptation seems to be, to a substantial extent, a process of reallocating your attention.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Attention, Process, Seems

  "Are You Happy Now?". Interview with Jennifer Robison, www.gallup.com. February 10, 2005.

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• When one looks back over human existence however, it is very evident that all culture has developed through an initial resistance against adaptation to the reality in which man finds himself.

  Beatrice M. Hinkle

  Reality, Men, Resistance

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• It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external, transition is internal

  William Bridges

  Change, Team, People

  120 Copy quote

• Yesterday's adaptations are today's routines.

  Ronald A. Heifetz

  Yesterday, Today

  Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow (2014). “Adaptive Leadership: The Heifetz Collection (3 Items)”, p.204, Harvard Business Review Press

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• 

  There is nothing permanent except change.

  Heraclitus

  Inspirational, Change, Success

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• At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Pathways, Advantage, Explaining

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• Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment.

  John Dewey

  Death, Nature, Mean

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• We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Adversity, Adaptability, Avoided

  "The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern". Book by Burton Egbert Stevenson, 1958.

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• Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Revolution for the Hell of It (1968).

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• Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.

  Franz Boas

  Opportunity, Looks, Path

  Franz Boas (1969). “Race and Democratic Society”, p.69, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

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• Nothing is wonderful when you get used to it.

  E. W. Howe

  Wonderful, Used, Familiarity

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• The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lying, Foundation, Evolution

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• Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the change in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.

  Giulio Douhet

  Change, Smile, War

  General Giulio Douhet (2014). “Command Of The Air”, p.54, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Ideas, Problem, Used

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• Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience.

  Ernst Mach

  Fields, Definite

  Ernst Mach (1959). “The Analysis of Sensations: And the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical”

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• Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretatio n for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable.

  David Mitchell

  Believe, Faithful, Degrees

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• Slowly we adjust, but only if we have to.

  Ellen Goodman

  Ifs

  Ellen Goodman (1979). “Turning Points”, Doubleday Books

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• It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Yoga, Health

  "The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity". Book by Mark Vonnegut, 1975.

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• It is a miracle of harmony, of the adaptation of the free inner life to the outward necessity of things.

  John Crowe Ransom

  Miracle, Harmony, Inner Life

  8 Copy quote