# Status quo

Status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social or political issues. To maintain the status quo is to keep things the way they presently are.

## Quotes

Quotes are arranged by author.
* Young entrepreneurs tend to be fearless and have no respect for the status quo, and that’s exactly what you need in an environment where the status quo is going to put you out of business.
** Steve Blank, Forbes "Lean And Meaningful: What Founders Still Need To Fix In The 21st Century". February 29, 2016 issue.
* Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)
** As quoted in Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976) by John Gordon Burke and Ned Kehde, p. 224, also in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 390
* When a new idea is advanced, it necessarily challenges the previous idea. This disturbs the holders of the previous idea and threatens their security. The normal reaction is anger. The new idea is then attacked, and support of it is required to be of a high order of certainty. The greater the departure from the previous idea, the greater the degree of certainty required, so it is said. I have never been able to accept this. It assumes that the old order was established on high orders of proof, and on examination this is seldom found to be true.
** Archeologist George Carter (1980, p. 318) quoted from Michael A. Cremo, Richard L. Thompson - Forbidden Archeology_ The Hidden History of the Human Race -Bhaktivedanta Institute (1996)
* 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 in: Lily Cole's Mission Impossible, Interview Magazine (June 5, 2012).
* Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth.
** George Crabbe, The Borough (1810), Letter iii, "The Vicar", line 138.
* I omit from consideration here the fact that people who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral, but in favor of the status quo.
** Max Eastman, Enjoyment of Poetry With Anthology for Enjoyment of Poetry (1951), p. 233
** Attributed by internet sources to Enjoyment of Poetry: With Other Essays in Aesthetics (1939), but not confirmed.
** The quote appears to have been first published in the essay "The Slogan, 'Propaganda Has No Place in Art,' Is The Symptom Of A Decaying Culture", Stage Magazine (1934).
* I would rather sit with the rural poor, the desperate children of urban blight, the victims of racism, and working people seeking a better life than with those whose religion is the status quo, whose goal is profit and whose hearts are cold.
** Douglas Fraser, Resignation letter from National Committee of Labor-Management Group, July 17, 1978; Published in: North Country Anvil, Nr. 28, (1978) p. 22
* Remember that almost every new concept was ridiculed, rejected, and laughed at when first presented, especially by the experts of the time. That’s what happened to the first scientists who said the earth was round, the first who said it went around the sun, and the first who thought people could learn to fly. You could write a whole book, and many have, just on things that people thought were impossible up until the time they happened.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), p. 11
* Many forward-thinking people have been locked up and even executed for saying such things as the earth wasn’t the center of the universe. Those who fought for social justice and change had even greater difficulties.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), p. 11
* Any number of volumes could be written on the hardships endured by those who sought change that threatened the status quo.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), p. 11
* Although we accept the inevitability of change, humans meet it with a lot of resistance. In most cases, change threatens those in positions of advantage and for the most part they are there in the first place to keep things the way they are.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007)
* Yet at every turn, vested interests (those who have the most to gain in keeping things the way they are) oppose even technological changes.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007)
* This is true for any society, whether the power structure is religious, military, socialist, capitalist, communist, fascist, or tribal. The leaders will attempt to hold back change. Sometimes, even when conditions are terrible for the majority of people, the people themselves may resist change because there is comfort in the familiar.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007)
* People raised in a monetary system where the bottom line is profit are likely to outsource portions of their business rather than be concerned with the well-being of their country and employees. The nature of our social institutions perpetuates this behavior. For example, if a moderate sized company were concerned with the well-being of employees and provided medical care, playgrounds for children, and a higher wage scale, it would not attract as many investors.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), pg 19
* This is not human nature but a byproduct of the culture. What is considered appropriate behavior today may be considered un-sane in the future.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), p. 19
* Better values, ideals, and behavior cannot be fully realized while there is still hunger, unemployment, deprivation, war, and poverty.
** Jacque Fresco, Designing the Future (2007), p. 19
* It is revolting to have no better reasons for a law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.
** Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Path of the Law (1897)
* Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, "We've always done it this way." I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.
** Grace Hopper, The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper (1987)
** Unsourced variant: The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way."
* There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
** William Ralph Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931)
* Change tends to fill people with this incredible fear.
** Rem Koolhaas, Smithsonian Magazine interview (2012)
* Ignorance — as a function of the system justifying tendencies it may activate—may, ironically, breed more ignorance. In the contexts of energy, environmental, and economic issues, the authors present 5 studies that (a) provide evidence for this... and... illustrate the unfortunate consequences of this process for individual action in those contexts that may need it most.
** Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyOn the Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information, by Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay, (February 2012)
* The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
** John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).
** Paraphrased variant: The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
* Satisfied powers are those that have reached the top of the pecking order, are happy with their lot, and are primarily interested in preserving the status quo. In contrast, rising powers are states on the move. They are not satisfied with their lot, are usually struggling for recognition and influence, and are therefore looking for ways to overturn the status quo.
** Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era (2002)
* Isn’t it generally quite easy to identify your short-term interests when the status quo is to your benefit? In such circumstances, you favor the status quo!
** Brian Leiter, The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud (2005)
* Certainly none of the advances made in civilization has been due to counter-revolutionaries and advocates of the status quo.
** Bill Mauldin, Back Home (1947)
* New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
** John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689).
* Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
** Laurence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time ISBN 0-688-03217-6 (1977), p. 83
* Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
** Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950)
* All great truths begin as blasphemies.
** George Bernard Shaw in Annajanska (1919)
* The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
** Pierre Trudeau, 1970, as quoted in profile at the Canadian Museum of Civilizations, also quoted in York University: The Way Must Be Tried (2008) by Michiel Horn, p. 4
* It seems that all my life I have been fighting against the status quo, against the tyranny of fossilized majority rule.
** Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment (revised edition 1997), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-510620-2, p. 211, quoting Bill Veeck

## See also

* Change
* The establishment
* Revolution
* Ruling class

## External links

* Neophobia (the fear or hatred of novelty, new things, innovation, or unfamiliar places or situations) at Wikipedia.