Charles Handy Quotes - Page 2

I like less the story that a frog if put in cold water will not bestir itself if that water is heated up slowly and gradually and will in the end let itself be killed, boiled alive, too comfortable with continuity to realize that continuous change at some point may become intolerable and demand a change in behaviour.

Creativity is born of chaos, even if it is somewhat difficult to glimpse the possibilities in the midst of the confusion.

Why don't we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel'.

Competition is healthy ... but there is more to life than winning or we should nearly all be losers

Talent comes with an individual name tag.

Presidents, leaders, to be effective have to represent the whole to the parts and to the world outside. They may live in the centre but they must not be the centre. To reinforce the common sense they must be a constant teacher, ever travelling, ever talking, ever listening, the chief missionary of the common cause.

Passion is born of vague hopes.

The morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised. I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

Forget land, buildings, or machines-the real source of wealth today is intelligence, applied intelligence. We talk glibly of "intellectual property" without taking on board what it really means. It isn't just patent rights and brand names; it is the brains of the place.

We should see schools as safe arenas for experimenting with life, for discovering our talents... for taking responsibity for tasks and others people, for learning how to learn... and for exploring our beliefs about life and society.

Villages are small and personal, and their inhabitants have names, characters, and personalities. What more appropriate concept on which to base our institutions of the future than the ancient social unit whose flexibility and strength substained human society through millenia?

The market is a mechanism for sorting the efficient from the inefficient, it is not a substitute for responsibility.

It is tempting to call for better leadership, but we probably expect too much from the leaders of the nations. Those nations are too big, the connections not strong enough, the commitment to the future not long enough. It is better to look smaller, to our now-smaller organisations, to local communities and cities, to families and clusters of friends, to small networks of portfolio people with time to give to something bigger than themselves. We have to fashion our own directions in our own places.

If economic progress means that we become anonymous cogs in some great machine, then progress is an empty promise.

Profit has to be a means to other ends rather than an end in itself.

Home is the first school for us all, a school with no fixed curriculum, no quality control, no examinations, no teacher training

The world by and large has to be reinvented.

There is as far as I know, no example in history, of any state voluntarily ceding power from the centre to its constituent parts.

I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.

The sobering thought is that individuals and societies are not, in the end, remembered for how they made their money, but for how they spent it.

An economy that adds value through information, ideas, and intelligence-the Three I Economy-offers a way out of the apparent clash between material growth and environmental resources.

Ordinary citizens are so accepting of what is going on, grumbling when their material interests were affected, but seemingly accepting the spiritual poverty so characteristic of today.