Tony Judt Quotes

We cannot change absolutely everything in one season.

Change is incremental. Change is small.

We should not anticipate that every time countries come together that we are doing some revolutionary thing. Instead of hitting home runs, sometimes we're going to hit singles.

Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

What Simone Weil said politics has meant all along, which means that you fight for 11 percent, 12 percent, 13 percent, that you avoid golden-age thinking and romantic melancholy and you just keep pushing.

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

I'm not a 'big picture' sort of guy. I prefer making small improvements each day.

I've found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.

History doesn't turn on a dime; it turns on a plugged nickel.

When people are faced with a choice between the Northern Ireland they have got and the perfect Northern Ireland, they complain. But in the real world that isn't the choice.

Nothing can be done except little by little.

The reality, I believe, is that all change starts small. The big picture is just too unwieldy, too incomprehensible and seemingly immovable. But give us something individual, quantifiable and personalize-able and, suddenly, our perspective shifts to the one.

I don't have big ideas. I sometimes have small ideas, which seem to work out.

In politics one should not expect big jumps. Everything takes time.

I have a sort of long-term plan to direct. I'm pragmatic about it. I realize I don't need to rush it or force it.

Little changes are the enemies of great changes.

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.

Real change happens a step at a time.

Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.

Transformation in real life is extraordinarily incremental, and that's all I'm going to say.

Rarely do we see immediate use of innovative technologies. I believe that the future is built by small pieces that add up.

I think you have to improve every day a little bit so you don't have one day where there's a big thing coming.

That's the way we want to go. Make smaller targets and then step by step developing.

I want to start with small but definitive change; the big picture is too abstract.

The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.