Howard Zinn Quotes

It is not easy for us to change. But it is possible and it is our glory as human beings

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.

I'll never be immune to criticism, and that's okay, and I'm very comfortable with that.

I just try to try to keep an attitude that I don't know what I'm doing. Not to the point where I'm beating myself up, but I just go in thinking that I have a lot to learn. And I hope I still have that attitude 30 years from now.

When something's wrong, even though you're the one doing it, you shouldn't feel defensive about it. It's hard because you have to protect yourself as a person in your life, but you can't protect yourself as an actor. You have to just take criticism.

In order to design a future of positive change, we must first become expert at changing our minds.

I'm still growing, still learning. I'm still open and vulnerable enough to know there's much more to be taught to me and learned by me. I hope I don't reach my pinnacle on this earth where I think I know it all.

Life is hard. Life is difficult. Life is going to punch you in the gut. But when you change your attitude, you change your behavior. When your behavior changes, so do your results.

There's always a time for change, and you should never be frightened of it.

Basically, we are all different and we all have something to learn and it doesn't mean people need to change who you are but one should be open to new things and, above all, tolerance and understanding are essential for growth and happiness.

I believe that man's noblest endowment is his capacity to change.

So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.

Learning something means coming into contact with a world of which you know nothing. In order to learn, you must be humble.

Habit is necessary. It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in the big things, and happy in small ways.

To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.

When I've been open and accepting of where I am, things start opening up.

There's nothing in your life you can't learn from, if you respond with the right attitude.

Just because your environment or living space changes doesn't mean that your attitude necessarily has to change.

A willingness to drop your ego and let yourself look foolish. You almost have to enjoy looking vulnerable. You'd be surprised how many people don't want to do that.

I think I am at the end of a certain phase of my life. What I'm on the lookout for now is the unexpected, for things that come from outside and that I never thought might happen. Sometimes you have to watch for them so you don't automatically say no to the new, simply because you're in the habit of saying no to everything that comes along. I'm constantly changing my perspective on my own life. I see the past differently, and that's a wonderful thing.

Changing your life does not always mean that you stop doing certain things. It may mean that you start doing certain other things. What you really want to do is nurture the attitude that you are open to learning more about yourself. Accepting more about yourself. This is what will inspire you to do something new.

We are always open to instruction, willing to be wiser every day than we were before, and to change whatever we can change for the better.

I think I have terminal curiosity. So I always think that the future will be better and different than the past. As I look back and take inventory of myself, I'm very open-minded and flexible. People say the older you get, you get set in your ways. I don't think so.

Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.

I’d rather welcome change than cling to the past.