[Ads-l] Modern Proverb: If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always gotten

[Charles C Doyle]

If nothing changes, nothing changes (Nothing changes if nothing changes). 

1978  Proposed Aircraft Sales to Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia: Hearings before the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, Second Session (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office) 90: [Congressman Stephen Solarz:] “Would you say that in the absence of any significant changes that the Saudis would not have the need for additional advanced aircraft?” [Secretary of Defense Harold Brown:] “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”  1991  Antonio V. Almeida, “Inside the Manhole: New Design on a Leaky Link,” in Environmental Engineering: Proceedings of the 1991 Specialty Conference, edited by Peter A. Krenkel (New York: American Society of Civil Engineers) 100: “Finally, as government regulation reflects a growing concern for worker safety, the well-being of system inspectors must be the ultimate criterion by which all manholes are judged. The axiom of ‘nothing changes unless something changes’ is obvious.”  1993  Ottawa Citizen, 30 Apr.: “After a chat one night with a fellow seeking counsel about a problem of drink, this is what the old man said: ‘The simplest notion but the most difficult reality we must face is that if nothing changes, nothing changes.’”  1998  Mail on Sunday [London], 29 Nov.: “But then I said to myself, ‘when are you going to move to the country? Do you need a man and a baby to do it? No. Then do it now. Nothing changes if nothing changes.’”

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Susan G Yerkes <susanyerkes at UTEXAS.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 2:35 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Modern Proverb: If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always gotten
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I have been looking for reliable attribution for the related quotation
"If nothing changes, nothing changes."
My Google searches have just turned up a myriad of speakers and slight varia=
tions of the wording. Any suggestions?

Sent from my iPhone
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