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Famous Quotations about Change

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future”. (John Kennedy, American president)

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find how you yourself have altered”. (Nelson Mandela, South African president)

“Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone”. (Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, American novelist)

“Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change”. (Confucius, Chinese teacher)

“Everything is in a process of change, nothing endures; we do not seek permanence”. (Masatoshi Naito, Japanese photographer)

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present”. (Jan Glidewell. American journalist)

“To change and to change for the better are two different things”. (German proverb)

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts”. (Arnold Bennett, English novelist)

“That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along”. (Lisa Alther, American novelist)

EARLE-CARLIN, S. Skills for Success. 2^nd edition, 2015.

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T E X T

Walls, dreams and genocide: Zelensky invokes history to rally support.

    He told U.S. lawmakers that he had a dream, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to describe Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion. He said to the British Parliament that his country would fight until the end, in forests and fields, a vow resonant of Winston Churchill’s exhortations against Nazism. To members of the German Parliament he spoke of a new wall dividing Europe, echoing the Berlin Wall of the Cold War.

    The passionate speeches, delivered remotely by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in his now-ubiquitous military-issue shirt, are part of a vigorous rhetorical effort to rally international support — for arms, or aid to his country, or sanctions against Russia.

    Mr. Zelensky, a former comedian who ran a populist campaign to become president in 2019, is no stranger to performing, and his social-media missives and speeches have transformed him into a global symbol of his country’s resistance to Russian aggression. The allusions, metaphors and allegories made by Mr. Zelensky point to a tailored strategy to emotionally appeal to nations and institutions and their histories.

    Mr. Zelensky’s soaring appeal to Congress, which prompted a standing ovation, framed Ukraine’s fight against Russia as a battle to preserve democracy, freedom and the rule of law, calling on the United States’ image of itself as a leader of the free world to defend those values.

    Russia’s attack, Mr. Zelensky said, was a brutal offensive “against our freedom, against our right to live freely in our own country, choosing our own future, against our desire for happiness, against our national dreams — just like the same dreams you have, you Americans.”

    He implored lawmakers to remember two moments of American trauma that involved assaults from the sky to empathize with Ukrainians fleeing missiles: Pearl Harbor and the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    He evoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to request antimissile defense systems, aircraft and a “no-fly” zone above Ukraine, a step that NATO allies have rebuffed, fearing it would escalate the war with Russia. “I can say I have a need. I need to protect our sky. I need your decision, your help, which means exactly the same, the same you feel when you hear the words, ‘I have a dream.’” he said.

    Mr. Zelensky capped the speech with a direct appeal to President Biden, tailoring his words to appeal to the United States’ role on the global stage. “Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace,” he said.

    British lawmakers earlier this month invited the Ukrainian leader for the first ever speech in the House of Commons by a foreign leader. He took advantage of the address to quote Shakespeare and align himself and his cause with Winston Churchill, Britain’s leader during World War II.

    Ukrainians needed to defend their country against the Russians, just as Britons did against Nazism, Mr. Zelensky said. He vowed his country would never surrender to Russian tanks. “We will fight till the end, at sea, in the air,” Mr. Zelensky said in front of the Ukrainian flag, echoing the phrasing of Mr. Churchill in a famous wartime speech: “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”

    In his address to the Bundestag last week, Mr. Zelensky urged Germany to take stronger action against Russia, casting the decision as a metaphorical division between building or demolishing a wall — harkening back to the Cold War, an emotional period for Germans. “You are like behind the wall again. Not the Berlin Wall but in the middle of Europe, between freedom and slavery,” he said. “And this wall grows stronger with each bomb that falls on our land, on Ukraine,” he said.

    He called for an embargo on trade with Russia, saying that its ability to keep trading, and keeping Ukraine from joining the European Union, was helping Moscow fortify this metaphorical wall.

    With Canada, Mr. Zelensky mixed a personal, first-name appeal to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with apocalyptic images of a Canada at war.

    In his address to Canadian lawmakers, Mr. Zelensky referred to the country’s leader simply as “Justin.” And to help them understand Ukraine’s experience, he said, he painted a vivid image of Canadian cities and landmarks under attack.

    He asked lawmakers to envision Canadian flags replaced by Russian ones, Toronto’s CN tower being destroyed by Russian missiles and schools being burned down. “This is our reality,” he said.

    He thanked Canada for its support, but said that what he really wanted was for the country to help bring about a no-fly zone in the skies above Ukraine and to force more companies to leave the Russian market.

From: www.nytimes.com/March 21, 2022

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    RUBIÃO found a rival in the heart of Quincas Borba, - a dog, a beautiful dog, half size, lead-colored fur, spotted black. Quincas Borba took it everywhere they slept in the same room. In the morning, it was the dog that woke him up, in bed, where they exchanged their first greetings. One of the owner's extravagances was giving it his own name; but, he explained it for two reasons, one doctrinal, another particular (...).

    - You should laugh, my dear. Because immortality is my lot or my dowry, or as best name there is. I will live perpetually in my book. Those who, however, do not can read, charlatan Quincas Borba to the dog, and ...

    The dog, hearing the name, ran to the bed. Quincas Borba, touched, looked at Quincas Borba.

    - My poor friend! my good friend! my only friend!

    - Unique!

    - Excuse me, you are too, I know, and I thank you very much; but to a sick person everything is forgiven. Perhaps my delusion is beginning. Let me see the mirror.

Trecho traduzido a partir de: http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/download/texto/b v000243.pdf. Acesso em: 15 dez. 2020.

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Can Germans’ right to switch off survive contemporary times?

    The lights were all out, the corridors were deserted. Only one computer was still working at the German Freiburg’s Institute for Advanced Studies. Newly-arrived American academic Kristen Ghodsee was working late in her office. Then there was a knock at the door, and in came the institute’s director. “He wanted to know if there was something wrong,” remembers Ghodsee. She replied she was fine, but the director looked at his watch and shook his head. It was 17:30. What seemed perfectly normal to the American, working after hours, was inconceivable to the German. After all, it was Feierabend, a German term which refers both to the end of the working day and the act of turning off from work entirely.
    But then along came the smartphone, destabilizing the delicate German work-life balance. Suddenly, phones were in every pocket, laptops in every bag. All at once, everyone had access to work communication outside the office, on the go and at home. It wasn’t long before the digital revolution was invading Germans’ sacred rest time. By 2015, more than a quarter of employees said bosses wanted them to be contactable at all hours, a national survey revealed. This despite a 2003 law stating workers’ 11-hour break couldn’t be interrupted.
    It seems many employees agree the idea of an uninterrupted break is too rigid. Last year, 96% of workers interviewed by Germany’s digital association Bitkom said they would like to organise their own work schedule to fit around their lives. But those responsible for employee protection are worried. “A lot of the shortening of rest periods is happening because people are working such long hours, not because they are working flexibly,” says research associate Nils Backhaus.
    The 11-hour rest period is also there to protect workers from themselves. Originally intended to make sure factory workers could recover physically between shifts, Backhaus says the break is just as necessary for mental regeneration. “Worker protection is just as needed in our new world of digitalisation, home office and smartphones”, says David Markworth.

(Josie Le Blond. www.bbc.com, 24.02.2020. Adaptado.)