"Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one"
About this Quote
The subtext is a rebuttal to two modern temptations at once: fatalism (“nothing I do matters”) and outsourcing (“someone else should fix this”). By insisting “the world is us,” Williamson collapses the comforting distance between private life and public crisis. It’s a rhetorical move that flatters the reader’s agency while also burdening them: if the world is broken, it’s not only because of institutions, it’s because of what we tolerate, repeat, and embody.
Context matters. Williamson emerges from the late-20th-century American spiritual marketplace (A Course in Miracles, therapeutic culture, New Age politics) where inner work is framed as civic work. In that tradition, “revolution” isn’t barricades; it’s a conversion narrative: change your consciousness, then your relationships, then your community. Critics hear an evasion of structural power. Supporters hear a necessary precondition for structural change: movements collapse without people capable of empathy, discipline, and moral imagination. The line works because it turns an overwhelming problem into a daily practice, and makes the mundane feel consequential without pretending it’s sufficient.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
|---|---|
| Source | A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles — Marianne Williamson, HarperCollins, 1992 (passage widely attributed to this book) |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Williamson, Marianne. (2026, January 15). Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/personal-transformation-can-and-does-have-global-9086/
Chicago Style
Williamson, Marianne. "Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/personal-transformation-can-and-does-have-global-9086/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/personal-transformation-can-and-does-have-global-9086/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







