Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries.
Everett DirksenRead
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
Interpretation
This quote suggests the importance of being adaptable while holding on to one's core principles.
Everett Dirksen's quote emphasizes the paradox of rigidity and flexibility in one's values. While it is essential to have fixed principles in life, true wisdom lies in being flexible and adaptable in how we apply those principles to different situations, allowing for growth, collaboration, and understanding in our interactions with others.
In practice
In a leadership seminar, to highlight the importance of adaptability in guiding a team.
Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries.
When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies.
During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected.
There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
If you're gonna make connections which are innovative... you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.
When the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased through fear.
When a captive lion steps out of his cage, he comes into a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds for him - the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. Yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
Issues are never simple. One thing I'm proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.
I think there must be something wrong with me as a writer. Because all my friends who are writers find reasons to hate everything about their day. But I just love writing. I love starting the day with language and seeing if I can make something of it.
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