Quotes from the Past

"In the long term the most important question for a company is not what you are but what you are becoming." Gary Hamel

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew." Abraham Lincoln

"When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge." Tuli Kupferberg

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Peter F. Drucker

"Nothing endures but change." Heraclitus

"There is an old African proverb that says if you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. We have to go far, quickly, and that means we have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we are facing and how we have to work to solve it.” Al Gore

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect." Chief Seattle

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein

"The key to change... is to let go of fear." Rosanne Cash

"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." Confucius

"No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is but also the world as it will be." Isaac Asimov

"Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin

"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." John Lennon

"You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result." Mahatma Gandhi

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke

"You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Buckminster Fuller

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." William Butler Yeats

"Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." Andre Gide

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living." Gail Sheehy

"Look at every situation as if you were in the future and you were looking back on it." General Peter Schoomaker

"With our thoughts we make the world.” Buddha

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Leo Tolstoy

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future." Victor Hugo

"Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers." Unknown

"To change your life: start immediately; do it flamboyantly; no exceptions." William James

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Mark Twain

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today." Isaac Asimov

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn ... and change." Carl Rogers

"It is never too late to become what you might have been." George Eliot

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." William James

"Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life." Alvin Toffler

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." John F. Kennedy

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Gandhi

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." Peter F. Drucker

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." Maya Angelou

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world." The Buddha

"Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for. It is a thing to be achieved." William Jennings Bryant

"Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything." George Lois

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." (Source Unknown)

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

"The future is in our hands. We are not hapless bystanders. We can influence whether we have a planet of peace, social justice, equity, and growth or a planet of unbridgeable differences between peoples, wasted resources, corruption, and terror." (James D. Wolfensohn in "A Better World Is Possible," July-Aug 2003) The Futurist Quote of the Year

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt

"When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people." Chinese proverb: Guanzi (c. 645BC)

"The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past." Robertson Davies, "A Voice from the Attic", 1960

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can." George Bernard Shaw

"Dare to be naive." Buckminster Fuller

"At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?" Jack Kornfield

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew." Marshall McLuhan

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Mahatma Gandhi

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." Seneca

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Native American Proverb

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." Charles Darwin

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” Seneca

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." Erich Fromm

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." Hans Hofmann

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present." Albert Camus

"Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have — and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up." James Belasco and Ralph Stayer

“Every thought we think is creating our future.” Louise L. Hay

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo

"Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't. Richard Bach

"When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened." John M. Richardson, Jr.