Status Quo Quotes - Page 3

• It's better to ask the right questions than accept the status quo

  Phil Harding

  Business, Management, Economics

  4 Copy quote

• Myth, legend, and ritual ... function to maintain a status quo. That makes them singularly bad in coping with change, indeed counterproductive, for change is the enemy of myth.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  Change, Enemy, Legends

  Elizabeth Janeway (1981). “Powers of the weak”, William Morrow & Co

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Constancy, far from being a virtue, seems often to be the besetting sin of the human race, daughter of laziness and self-sufficiency, sister of sleep, the cause of most wars and practically all persecutions.

  Freya Stark

  Daughter, War, Sleep

  Freya Stark (2013). “Perseus In The Wind: A Life of Travel”, p.113, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Citizens as conceived by governments are persons who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation. Oddly enough, while all governments aim at producing men of this type to the exclusion of all other types, their heroes in the past are of exactly the sort that they aim at preventing in the present. Americans admire George Washington and Jefferson, but imprison those who share their political opinions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hero, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.11, Routledge

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you're a status quo writer, you're considered to not be political but that's as political as if you're a progressive writer. Some politics are asked to show their passports and others aren't. In the Dominican Republique, if you're slightly progressive, people have a lot of suspicions that you're up to some sort of conspiracy, that this is some sort of plot. On the other hand, if you're conservative and mainstream, people tend to take that as a given and don't notice the politics.

  Junot Diaz

  People, Political, Conservative

  4 Copy quote

• All sudden and violent changes, whatever their causes or character, must tend to decrease the respect for status quo as a natural order of things.

  Gunnar Myrdal

  Character, Order, Consistency

  9 Copy quote

• Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate's nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be.

  Marvin Harris

  Men, Years, Males

  5 Copy quote

• 'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves.

  Sandra Cisneros

  White, Challenging The Status Quo, Want

  FaceBook post by Sandra Cisneros from Sep 20, 2014

  123 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once the new power has taken over they have to establish a new status quo just to keep the factories and trains running.

  John Lennon

  Running, Taken, Factories

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Explore the situation. Statements are expendable. Don't keep on looking in the rearview mirror and defending the status quo which is outmoded the moment it happened.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Mirrors, Moments, Situation

  Marshall McLuhan, Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, William Toye (1987). “Letters of Marshall McLuhan”, Oxford University Press, USA

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.

  Ian Anderson

  Promise, Challenging The Status Quo, May

  7 Copy quote

• The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

  Walter Benjamin

  Ideas, Progress, Grounded

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings (2003). “Selected Writings: 1938-1940”, p.184, Harvard University Press

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• America has an immense amount of power, but it doesn't use it in any benevolent way. It uses it to maintain a status quo.

  Hamza Yusuf

  America, Way, Use

  Source: www.pbs.org

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like the early Christians, we must move into a sometime hostile world armed with the revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful gospel we shall boldly challenge the status quo.

  Martin Luther

  Christian, Religious, Jesus

  26 Copy quote

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

  John le Carre

  One Thing

  John le Carre (2002). “Smiley's People”, p.302, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be more tolerant of the difficult people. They're the creative ones. They're not happy with the status quo.

  Terry Leahy

  People, Creative, Not Happy

  7 Copy quote

• Certainly none of the advances made in civilization has been due to counterrevolutionaries and advocates of the status quo.

  Bill Mauldin

  Civilization, Made, Has Beens

  Bill Mauldin (1947). “Back Home”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The defenders of the status quo often masquerade as the preservers of harmony.

  Mark Sheppard

  Peace, Harmony, Masquerade

  8 Copy quote

• Epitaph on Newton: Nature and Nature's law lay hid in night: God said, "Let Newton be!," and all was light. [added by Sir John Collings Squire: It did not last: the Devil shouting "Ho. Let Einstein be," restored the status quo] [Aaron Hill's version: O'er Nature's laws God cast the veil of night, Out blaz'd a Newton's soul and all was light.

  George Polya

  Night, Law, Light

  9 Copy quote

• Pessimism doesn't grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities.

  Harvey Mackay

  Jobs, Opportunity, Maintaining The Status Quo

  17 Copy quote

• It follows that acceleration in the rate of change will result in an increasing need for reorganization. Reorganization is usually feared, because it means disturbance of the status quo, a potential threat to peoples vested interests in their jobs, and an upset to established ways of doing things. For these reasons, needed reorganization is often deferred. With a resulting loss in effectiveness and increase in costs.

  Marvin Bower

  Change, Jobs, Mean

  63 Copy quote

• Defenders of the status quo will often try to mislead the public by saying, "Just look at our state prisons: nearly half of the inmates are violent offenders. This system is about protecting the public from violent crime." This type of statement is highly misleading.

  Michelle Alexander

  Trying, Looks, Half

  Source: www.truth-out.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• People I look to: again, Hank Aaron, man you challenged the status quo and the records of the game. Monumental feats in an era where people didn't like that.

  Dave Winfield

  Sports, Men, Games

  7 Copy quote

• The key.. will be a new public awareness of how serious is the threat to the global environment. Those who have a vested interest in the status quo will probably continue to be able to stifle any meaningful change until enough citizens.. are willing to speak out.

  Al Gore

  Meaningful, Keys, Speaks Out

  9 Copy quote

• The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly.

  Seth Godin

  Leaving, Mediocrity, Building

  4 Copy quote