Challenging Status Quo Quotes

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests.

Sometimes people think you’re smart if you question the status quo, if nothing else.

In America, evangelical churches have often been bastions of conservatism, providing support for the status quo.

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.

And I have a message for the liberals and the defenders of the status quo: we're just getting started.

Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march.

Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector.

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative.

Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.

Pessimism doesn't grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.

The greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

I love challenging the status quo.

The status quo is simply unacceptable.

Some say that I should settle down, go slower and not push so hard, so quickly for such transformational change. To them, I say that you misunderstand the size of the problems we face, the strength of the status quo and the urgency of the people's desire for change.

I'm a harsh critic of the status quo.

The true enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who defend an imploding status quo.

Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.

We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.

A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.

I've never been one who enjoys maintaining the status quo. I'm always pushing for new ideas, whether it's in business or philanthropy.

Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.

I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.

Comedy is to force us to observe ourselves in ways that are humorous and yet, at the end of the day, that cause us enough discomfort with the status quo to make a change.

People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.

I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.

Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

I didn't run for mayor to be the caretaker of the status quo.

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.

This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

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.

I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.

Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.

Often motivated by a desire to maintain the existing status quo, sloth almost cost the U.S. its auto industry, as it refused for decades to build fuel-efficient cars to compete with Japanese, Korean and European imports.

Growing up in New York with artist parents - a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo - I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake.

Corporations often partner with government after natural disasters, as many companies did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As a rule, however, long-term civic/corporate partnerships are still rare .But this need not remain the status quo, as many opportunities are available for such partnerships.

See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Stuff your eyes with wonder.

'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves.

People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.