Status Quo Quotes

Texans and independent voters like to vote for somebody who is going to buck the status quo, and isn't going to do as he is told.

I think Donald Trump was successful in capturing "drain the swamp, change Washington, a big screw-you to the status quo" - which has already been ironic since election night. But it was one of his big messages, and there's a broader sense of how to address the feelings of so many people left behind by the economy.

To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo.

Writers transform: they throw a hand grenade into the notion of reality that people carry around in their heads. That's very dangerous, very destructive, but not to do it means you are satisfied with the status quo - and that's a kind of danger as well, because a kind of violence is already being perpetuated.

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept..

We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability.

Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.

Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.

A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Tradition was safety; change was danger.

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

The insistence on complete certainty about the full details of global warming-the most serious threat we have ever faced-is actually an effort to avoid facing the awful, uncomfortable truth: that we must act boldly, decisively, comprehensively, and quickly, even before we know every last detail about the crisis. Those who continue to argue that the appropriate response is merely additional research are simply seeking to camouflage timidity or protect their vested interest in the status quo.

Based on the experience of my life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future.

Independence .... is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.

We suffer more … when we fall from a better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal object of prudence.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

Adroit geo-strategists take new realities into account as they try to imagine how global politics will unfold. In the foreign policy business, however, inertia is a powerful force and 'adroit' a little-known concept.

Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.

England is a slow moving country, reluctant to change—deeply reluctant to change.

Brahmins cannot hope to claim a high and superior status forever. Times are changing. They have to come down.

It's way easier to stay in the comfort zone, especially when things are going good than to go out on a limb and take some risks. My philosophy is exactly the opposite: Sometimes it's risky not to take a risk.