Neil Postman Quotes

The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it. People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

I have a resistance to change in things that I feel comfortable with and that I'm used to.

By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.

I doubted myself for a long time... I'm comfortable not using my vision. I weave around my problems.

People will suffer almost anything, as long as it means they don't have to change.

People don't want novelty - they want the reassurance of familiarity. No-one wants to be challenged, no-one wants to have their minds blown. There is an insatiable appetite for affirmation.

For many people, change is more threatening than challenging. They see it as the destroyer of what is familiar and comfortable rather than the creator of what is new and exciting.

The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.

You get so used to a world that you complain, but never actually want anything different. Why crave the unfamiliar?

One of the things that 'Too Bright' refers to is how there's a lot of times where I see things that I could change that could make me more contented, but I usually just don't make those changes because they seem new and scary. I just stay where I'm at, even if I'm miserable, because I'm familiar with it.

Sometimes, we are so attached to our way of life that we turn down wonderful opportunities simply because don't know what to do with it.

After living with their dysfunctional behavior for so many years, people become invested in defending their dysfunctions rather than changing them.

It is easy to stay the same but it is not easy to change. Most people choose to stay the same all their lives.

Change terrifies people. They like new, but they don't like new with change.

What people believe is a measure of what they suffer.

Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Why do people persist in a dissatisfying relationship, unwilling either to work toward solutions or end it and move on? It's because they know changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they're already experiencing.

Everyone has problems. It's how you choose to deal with them. Some people choose to be whiners some choose to be winners. Some choose to be victims some choose to be victors.

I understand that change is frightening for people, especially if there's nothing to go to. It's best to stay where you are. I understand that.

a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he's already got. He'll cling to trouble he's used to before he'll risk a change. Yes. A man will talk about how he'd like to escape from living folks. But it's the dead folks that do him the damage. It's the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and dont try to hold him, that he cant escape from.

Most of us prefer to walk backward into the future, a posture that may be uncomfortable but which at least allows us to keep on looking at familiar things as long as we can.

The whole nostalgia thing, and just sticking with what you always liked and what you know and not taking a chance on something or expanding. I think especially after a certain age.

I was content in my universe and didn't want to change it at all, even though I was being propelled in that direction.

I hate change more than almost anything.

I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change.