The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.
Interpretation
Staying stagnant comes with greater costs than making changes for improvement.
This quote by William J. Clinton emphasizes the idea that clinging to familiar routines and practices can ultimately lead to more significant negative consequences than the discomfort of embracing change. It suggests that innovation and adaptation are essential for growth and success, as the risks associated with remaining in the status quo often outweigh those involved in pursuing new directions.
In practice
During a team meeting when discussing the need for new strategies.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
I do genuinely believe that the political system is not linear. When it reaches a tipping point fashioned by a critical mass of opinion, the slow pace of change we're used to will no longer be the norm. I see a lot of signs every day that we're moving closer and closer to that tipping point.
My hope is that the corona crisis will help bring us into a new age of cooperation and solidarity and a realization that we're in this together.
The battle for women's rights has been largely won.
The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
If you look at a great city, one of its amazing features is that you're going to find all sorts of things that you might not specifically have chosen in advance. And they will change your day. Maybe your month. Maybe your whole life.
If a huge number of people call for change, the government will have to react. If you want to avoid uprisings, or demonstrations, you need to respond to the people's desperate need for change.
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