Jack McDevitt Quotes

In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.

There are people and interests that do not want change. It is not in their interest for this system to change.

Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.

Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

If, as is natural, you focus on the corruption and on those threatened institutions that are trying to prevent change - even though they don't really know what they're trying to prevent - then you can get pessimistic.

Liberal institutions soon cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established.

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear.

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

The status quo is a powerful force.

It is easier to fix roads and train police than to change the deep-rooted incentives and habits of those in power.

Social stability is ensured, not by the cessation of the demand for change – for the needy and the restless will never cease to cry for it – but by the fact that change in its progress must at last hurt some class of men who are strong enough to arrest it.

Conservatives hold on to things not only because they are attached to them, but also because they do not see the sense in radical change, until someone has told them what it will lead to.

Many people, companies, and organizations are trying to protect the past at any cost. We see this regularly in business as the incumbent vs. innovator fight, but I think it's more profound than that. It's literally a difference in point of view.

I realised how much the system did not want to change.

Many of the obstacles for change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status.

The established order has too many self-protecting economic entities, and not enough people who yet understand what it takes to change.

I think some people are just very passionate that things remain the way they were when they were kids.

People.. especially people in positions of power.. have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don't want to hear that we're on the wrong path, that we've got to shift gears and start thinking differently.

Any great change must expect opposition, because it shakes the very foundation of privilege.

Even talking about change can be threatening to entrenched interests...Careers in the Pentagon, the board room, or the halls of Congress are not advanced by creating the disruptions that go with real change, so there are very few voices willing to speak up for the future and move beyond rhetoric to make serious choices.

Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs.

There's a part of all of us whose impulse is to say, "Let's keep everything the same until I die and then you can do whatever you want afterward." And that's a difficult part.

The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they've got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change.

The appeal of the New Right is simply that it seems to promise that nothing will change in the domestic realm. People are terrified of change there, because it's the last humanizing force left in society, and they think, correctly, that it must be retained.