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

[Dan Goncharoff]

Doesn't this go back to Aristotle? "Nothing changes into change" or some
such?



DanG

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> 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
>
> ________________________________________
> 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
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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