Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Quotes

Sometimes we get comfortable with the status quo, even when the status quo isn’t any good.

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

The reality is, some people don't want you to change or go anywhere different.

The first resistance to social change is to say it's not necessary.

Consistency frequently launches its devotees into obstinacy.

Rule, and change nothing.

France has chosen to ignore the great transformation of the 21st century and cultivate a [culture of] status quo and rigidity.

They all overvalued the importance of stability.

Those who don't want to change, let them sleep.

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.

The tendency is to keep doing things the way you have done them.

Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs.

Change occurs in direct proportion to dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction never changes.

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.

Tradition" is very often an excuse word for people who don't want to change.

There is danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all other virtues.

Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system.

It is indeed a law of politics as well as of physics, that a body in action must overcome a body at rest.

Change is strong, but habit is strong too; and you cannot change the old for new, like a garment.

Inertia is as powerful a force in society and politics as it is on physics, and effecting change can be demanding and discouraging.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone, you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change.

When someone doesn't react to changes, the changes turn against him.

I think people don't really like change.

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.