Quotes define Santa Barbara County department attitudes | Government and Politics

Agriculture Commissioner, Weights & Measures Department

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

American author, humorist

Auditor-Controller’s Office

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, first president

Behavioral Wellness Department

“Perseverance is a choice. It’s not a simple, one-time choice, it’s a daily one. There’s never a final decision.”

“But as for the future, I foresee a world which is more creative, more open, more loving, more ecologically friendly, more honest about its history and progress, and I think a lot of those contributions will be made by young people.”

Clerk-Recorder-Assessor-Registrar of Voters Office

“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Community Services Department

“Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.”

County Counsel’s Office

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes time. Vision with action can change the world.”

Digital transition special issue

“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

American author, entrepreneur

District Attorney’s Office

“Bobby Kennedy, just six weeks before he was killed by an assassin’s bullet, reminded us that the health of a society depends on the ability of people to walk their own streets in safety. Not to be frightened into isolation.

“‘A nation,’ he said, ‘which surrenders to crime — whether by indifference or heavy-handed repression, is a society which has resigned itself to failure.’”

— California Gov. Gavin Newsom

State of the State Address, March 8

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

Major League Baseball player

“Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on Earth, for what they believe is what they become.”

General Services Department

“One of the things about driving risk-taking and innovation is not to let the fear of what you’re going to lose obscure the possibility of what you might gain.”

Coca-Cola chief executive officer

Human Resources Department

“You win by cultivating the right culture, leadership, expectations, beliefs, mindset, relationships, and habits before you even play the game. You win in the locker room first. Then, you win on the field.”

“Change doesn’t roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

American civil rights leader

Planning and Development Department

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.”

Public Defender’s Office

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

South African theologian, human rights activist

“We have to think not only about how we stop overt discrimination and racism, but also how we weed it out within policies and change the power dynamics, such that those people who have not traditionally had a voice in this country are able to have that voice.”

Professor of epidemiology, Stanford University

(“My quote is the same every year. I’m an engineer.”)

Public Works Department director

“Public safety isn’t expensive … it’s priceless.”