No idea is so antiquitated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not some day be antiquitated . . . to seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Change doesn't always lead to improvement, just as not all progress is beneficial.
This quote by Ellen Glasgow emphasizes the distinction between mere change and meaningful growth. It suggests that while change is a constant in life, not every change results in progress or positive development; some changes can be regressive or detrimental, just like movement that doesnβt necessarily lead us toward our goals. The quote invites individuals to reflect on the nature of changes in their lives and to evaluate whether those changes serve their interests and aspirations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used when discussing the importance of evaluating personal growth during a life transition.
More from Ellen Glasgow
All quotes βSpring, which germinated in the earth, moved also with a strange restlessness, in the hearts of... women. As the weeks passed, inextinguishable hope, which mounts with the rising sap, looked from their faces.
In the past few years, I have made a thrilling discovery ... that until one is over sixty, one can never really learn the secret of living. One can then begin to live, not simply with the intense part of oneself, but with one's entire being.
The things I feared were not in the sky, but in the nature and in the touch of humanity. The cruelty of children . . . the blindness of the unpitiful - these were my terrors. But not the crash of thunder overhead, not the bolts of fire from the clouds.
He felt with the force of a revelation that to throw up the clods of earth manfully is as beneficent as to revolutionize the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted - and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone.
Women like to sit down with trouble - as if it were knitting.
Similar quotes
We are going to inherit the earth . There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and burn its own world before it finally leaves the stage of history. We Are not afraid of ruins. We who ploughed the prairies and built the cities can build again, only better next time. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.
Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you've got.
For things to change you need to change. For things to get better you need to get better. The good news is you can change, you can get better and you can start right where you are at and you can go as far as you want to go.
There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
Many abolitionists have yet to learn the ABC of woman's rights.
We will have to take risks, to chance failure, to be willing to walk away from the familiar paths that have brought us to this point.