Alvin Toffler Quotes - Page 3

Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.

The control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow's worldwide struggle for power in every human institution.

Much education springs from some image of the future. If the image of the future held by a society is grossly inaccurate, its education system will betray its youth.

Many countries today have begun the transition from an industrial wealth system and civilization to a knowledge-based system - without appreciating that a new wealth system is impossible without a corresponding new way of life.

Designer's derive their rewards from 'inner standards of excellence, from the intrinsic satisfaction of their tasks. They are committed to the task, not the job. To their standards, not their boss.' So whereas most people divide their lives between time spent earning money and time spent spending it, designers generally lead a seamless existence in which work and play are synonymous. As Milanese designer Richard Sapper put it: "I never work-all the time."

The recognition that no knowledge can be complete, no metaphor entire, is itself humanizing. It counteracts fanaticism. It grants even to adversaries the possibility of partial truth, and to oneself the possibility of error.

In the year 2000 an illiterate person will not be someone who can't read or write, but someone who is not able to learn, unlearn and learn again.

Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to predict, with at least a fair success, the outcome of his own actions. To do this, he must be able to predict how the environment will respond to his acts. Sanity, itself, thus hinges on man's ability to predict his immediate, personal future on the basis of information fed him by the environment.

If you have the right knowledge you can substitute it for all the other facts of production

Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.

I work virtually every waking hour.

The great growling engine of change - technology.

Freedom of expression is no longer a political nicety, but a precondition for economic competitiveness.

Most managers were trained to be the thing they most despise - bureaucrats.

Interruptions: The average worker gets interrupted five times each hour. It takes an average of 5 minutes to handle each interruption and 1 minute to get back to what you were doing. This adds up to 30 minutes each hour or 50% of your time!! You've got to think about "big things" while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.

The computer is a greater threat to the [nuclear] family than all the abortion laws and gay rights movements and pornography in the world.

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.

Each new machine or technique, in a sense, changes all existing machines and techniques, by permitting us to put them together into new combinations. The number of possible combinations rises exponentially as the number of new machines or techniques rises arithmetically. Indeed, each new combination may, itself, be regarded as a new super-machine.

It would be a mistake to assume that the present day educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid change. But much of this change is no more than an attempt to refine the existent machinery, making it ever more efficient in pursuit of obsolete goals.

The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.

Every generation gets a chance to change the world Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls Cos the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard

To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester went broke.

Science fiction is the sovereign prophylactic against future shock.

Human beings were held accountable long before there were corporate bureaucracies. If the knight didn't deliver, the king cut off his head.