"Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought."

Change

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Change as articulated by Jose Saramago. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Change provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Jose Saramago

José de Sousa Saramago was a Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."

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More by Jose Saramago

"The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others."

— Jose Saramago
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"I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work."

— Jose Saramago
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"Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer."

— Jose Saramago
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"I presume that nobody will deny the positive aspects of the North American cultural world. These are well known to all. But these aspects do not make one forget the disastrous effects of the industrial and commercial process of 'cultural lamination' that the USA is perpetrating on the planet."

— Jose Saramago
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More about Change

"If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect."

— Jacques Yves Cousteau
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"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts."

— Arnold Bennett
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"Men do not quit playing because they grow old they grow old because they quit playing."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes
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"I have to struggle to change people's perceptions of me. I grew very frustrated with the perception that I'm this shy, retiring, inhibited aristocratic creature when I'm absolutely not like that at all. I think I'm much more outgoing and exuberant than my image."

— Helena Bonham Carter
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