98 Challenging Status Quo Quotes
Following is our list of challenging status quo quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about changing the status quo.
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Famous Challenging Status Quo Quotes
Challenging the status quo takes commitment, courage, imagination, and, above all, dedication to learning. — Marshall Ganz
Great leaders are not afraid to challenge the status quo and embrace change. — Michael Abrashoff
Don’t be afraid to think different and challenge the status quo. — Jensen Huang
The job isn't to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo. — Seth Godin
I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo. — Steve Lacy
Big ideas come from forward thinking people who challenge the norm, think outside the box, and invent the world they see inside rather than submitting to the limitations of current dilemmas — T. D. Jakes
Embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction. — Charles Koch
Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking. — Stephen Covey
It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo. — Gerry Adams
All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom. — Hyman Rickover
Any great change must expect opposition, because it shakes the very foundation of privilege. — Lucretia Mott
To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist. — Uta Hagen
Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside — Andy Stanley
True freedom comes from being able to challenge and question the ideas that dominate our culture. — Bret Weinstein
Short Challenging Status Quo Quotes
- Innovation and progress are achieved only by those who venture beyond standard operating procedure. — Michael Abrashoff
- If we are to better the future we must disturb the present. — Catherine Booth
- The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. Convention is the enemy of progress. — Trevor Baylis
- Great thoughts are against all doctrines of conformity — Austin Osman Spare
- You have to be willing to question conventional wisdom and think for yourself. — Jim Simons
- The duty of youth is to challenge corruption. — Kurt Cobain
- The way to bring about change is to be proactive and active. — Octavia Spencer
- Question everything generally thought to be obvious. — Dieter Rams
Challenging Status Quo Image Quotes
Challenging The Status Quo Quotes
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. — Johnny Cash
One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Understand first that failure indicates courage. It means you had the bravery to test yourself. The temerity to challenge your status quo. The audacity to step outside your comfort zone. That impulse is both inspiring and empowering. Hold on to it. And congratulate yourself for trying. — Rich Roll
If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge the status quo by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market. — Satoru Iwata
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. — Walter Isaacson
Like the early Christians, we must move into a sometime hostile world armed with the revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful gospel we shall boldly challenge the status quo. — Martin Luther
When you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. — Steve Jobs
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. — George Saunders
I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it? — Sheldon Adelson
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. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Changing The Status Quo Quotes
All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.' — Sonia Sanchez
In fact, people themselves are responsible for making the status quo so resistant to change. We are trapped by our own behavior. — Chris Argyris
The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo – even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future. — Richard Rohr
For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be. — Henry A. Kissinger
At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. — Viola Davis
In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change. — Laurence J. Peter
We know - intellectually - that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive. — Margaret Heffernan
The mind is reluctant to embrace deep change, and will play devious games to maintain the status quo. — Kristin Linklater
Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders. — John P. Kotter
There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo. — John Le Carre
Maintaining The Status Quo Quotes
Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism. — Jane Elliot
It's not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion. — David Ben-Gurion
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. — David Rockefeller
NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world. — Arundhati Roy
There are... two kinds of people: those who are changing and those who are setting themselves up to be victims of change. As the world continues to march on around us, if I am only maintaining the status quo - if I'm not growing - then I'm falling behind. — Jim Clemmer
Rwanda was considered a second-class operation; because it was a small country, we had been able to maintain a kind of status quo. They were negotiating, they'd accepted the new peace project, so we were under the impression that everything would be solved easily. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali
One of the things I benefited from when I started this business was that I didn't know anything. I was just instinct with no preconceived notions. This enabled me to learn and change quickly without having to worry about maintaining any kind of status quo, like some of my bigger competitors. — Michael Dell
Military intervention to maintain the global status quo will become a constant feature of international relations, whether this is justified in terms of fighting drugs, fighting terrorism, containing 'rogue states', opposing 'Islamic fundamentalism', or containing China. — Walden Bello
Insistence on having a sexual orientation in sex is about defending the status quo, maintaining sex differences and the sexual hierarchy; whereas resistance to sexual orientation, regimentation is more about where we need to be going. — John Stoltenberg
Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism. — Jane Elliott
People Writing About Challenging Status Quo
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Marshall Ganz |
10 | 240 |
 Jensen Huang |
105 | 17 |
 Seth Godin |
894 | 2308 |
 Niccolo Machiavelli |
374 | 6168 |
 Steve Lacy |
50 | 433 |
 T. D. Jakes |
247 | 32111 |
More Challenging Status Quo Quotes
The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. — Warren Bennis
Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march. — Howard Schultz
If you want to thrive in today's economy, you must challenge the status quo and get the financial education necessary to succeed. — Robert Kiyosaki
The most dangerous ideas are not those that challenge the status quo. The most dangerous ideas are those so embedded in the status quo, so wrapped in a cloud of inevitability, that we forget they are ideas at all. — Jacob M. Appel
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. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Stuff your eyes with wonder. — Ray Bradbury
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. — Michael Eric Dyson
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. — Sarah Palin
The greatest pain is the pain of a new idea. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people. — Seth
If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community to challenge the status quo into making responsible changes, it will take the subversive leadership of academics and practitioners who keep reminding students of the profession’s responsibilities. — Samuel Mockbee
Theory and practice are not only interwoven with one’s culture but with the responsibility of shaping the environment, of breaking up social complacency, and challenging the power of the status quo. — Samuel Mockbee
Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. — Sarah Palin
The status quo is never news, only challenges to it. — Malorie Blackman
Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart. — Malcolm Gladwell
It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. — Seth Godin
People I look to: again, Hank Aaron, man you challenged the status quo and the records of the game. Monumental feats in an era where people didn't like that. — Dave Winfield
You want continual improvement? Then I challenge every employee in an organization to discard the status quo and ask themselves everyday, How can I improve my job?, then find a way to make it happen. — John Novak
I love challenging the status quo. — Sara Ramirez
Sometimes people think you’re smart if you question the status quo, if nothing else. — Craig Ferguson
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. — Eliot Spitzer
Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo. — Harold Pinter
Embrace change as an opportunity to learn, to improve, to make a difference in others' lives as well as in your own. Have the courage to challenge the status quo. Remember that preparation and ambition in combination with opportunity equals success. And have fun! — Rosabeth Moss Kanter
As the generalization goes about the art industry, people can be really challenging and thought-provoking in their thinking and questioning the status quo, and it's really important that the status quo can be questioned and that there are people doing that. — Lily Cole
I would say first of all, anyone who wants to challenge the status quo always gets that response. Ninety percent of the time, that's just bull. That's just the way in which people choose to prop up their own privilege or their own particular position. So mostly I shrug it off. — Malcolm Gladwell
The radical ideas of one generation have become the common sense of the next. We all stand on the shoulders of earlier generations of reformers, radicals, and idealists who challenged the status quo of their day. They helped change America by organizing movements, pushing for radical reforms, popularizing progressive ideas, and spurring others to action. — Peter Dreier
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up. — Wole Soyinka
The tendencies are considerably weaker in the natural sciences, which, for the past several centuries, have survived and flourished through such constant challenge, and therefore, at best, seek to encourage it. Serving the status quo in political and socioeconomic realms is a different matter. — Noam Chomsky
I love, first of all, reading and discovering what the common perception is and then trying to figure out... well, how does your life cross over into that character, or what's an angle on this that might challenge the status quo? It's just a great journey as well as an education. You're constantly being educated - it's like I'm back at school and making up for lost time. — Andy Serkis
We have to create the ability to police our own communities instead of leaving it in the hands of a system that has never understood us, tried to marginalize and politically assassinate all of our leaders whenever they came to challenge the status quo. — Immortal Technique
I always wanted my photographs to challenge the status quo, to contest the kinds of images that existed in popular culture. — Dawoud Bey
In Conclusion
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