James Wolfensohn Quotes

Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.

We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.

Every single change is fought by those who would be affected by it.

If you want to really change something, do not try to fight the existing reality. create a new reality.

Everything established should go out the window. But I don't know how to do it. If someone knew how, it would have happened by now.

The greatest of the changes that science has brought is the acuity of change; the greatest novelty the extent of novelty.

There's no way to move without making waves.

Science is not about status quo. It's about revolution.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.

At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin.

The old rules and the old methods of winning are gone.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?

One new feature or fresh take can change everything.

When you drop any new idea in the pond of the world, you get a ripple effect. You have to be aware that you will be creating a cascade of change.

An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along.

I think airlines have been very much parrots. They'll just follow what everyone else is doing. Why change a model that they're happy in? And it takes someone like myself or Richard Branson who comes from outside the industry to say, 'Hey, let's try something new.'

I think I can change the game.

The price of doing the same old thing is higher than the price of change.

The urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.

What is now commonplace was once not, and I think that's a testament to what it means to really break the mold and push the limits.

My goal isn't to be one of the best; it's to change the game, to change the way things work.

I just want to change the game.