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Daniel Goleman, US psychologist, author (b. 1946)

 

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Epictetus (1st Century BC)

 

The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be. Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude towards ourselves can we have the right attitude towards others.

Wilferd Arlan Peterson, US poet, author (1900-1995)

Beginnings

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we will never begin.

Ivan Turgenev, Russian author (1818-1883)

 

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no-one could find fault.

John Henry Newman, British religious leader, prelate, author (1801-1890)

 

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, letter-writer (1749-1832)

 

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Anne Frank, German Jewish diarist, concentration camp victim (1929-1945)

 

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

Socrates, Greek philosopher (469-399 BC)

 

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.

Horace, Roman poet (65-8 BC)

 

The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.

Walt Disney, US artist, film producer (1901-1966)

 

The creation of a thousand forests is one acorn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist, poet (1903-1882)

Brevity

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator (106-43 BC)

 

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson, US President (1741-1826)

 

Beware of the fool whose volume of words is as that of ten men, a hundred arrows shot and each one wide of the target. If thou art wise, shoot one and that one straight.

Saadi, Persian poet (1184-c.1291)

 

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844-1900)

 

A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5 x 11 inch paper cannot be understood.

Mark Ardis, US software engineer

 

It is more interesting to explore a topic than to exhaust it.

Mark McCormack, US sports agent (1930-2003)

 

If you can’t say it in thirty seconds, you probably can’t say it at all. If you know, you can make any point very well in thirty seconds.

Terry Mayo Sullivan, US TV news presenter (1943-1994)

Bureaucracy

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

Franz Kafka, Czechoslovakian author (1883-1924)

 

 

The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

Eugene McCarthy, US author, senator (1916-2005)

 

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

Charles Peters, US editor, author (b. 1926)

 

The government is extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. These are raised to the nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases.

 Josiah Stamp, British economist, businessman (1880-1941)

 

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, French philosopher, jurist (1689-1755)

Change

The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.

John F Kennedy, US President (1917-1963)

 

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

John Henry Newman, British religious leader, prelate, author (1801-1890)

You cannot become what you want to be by remaining what you are.

Max De Pree, US business executive, management author (b. 1924)

 

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no-one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy, Russian author (1828-1910)

 

God prevent we should ever be twenty years without a revolution.

Thomas Jefferson, US President (1741-1826)

 

It is not the strongest of species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin, British naturalist (1809-1882)

 

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.

Charles F Kettering, US engineer, inventor (1876-1958)

 

In life, change is inevitable. In business, change is vital.

Warren Bennis, US academic, management author (b. 1925)

 

When you’re through changing, you’re through.

Bruce Barton, US author, advertising executive (1886-1967)

 

If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.

Frank Gelett Burgess, US humorist, illustrator (1865-1951)

 

When the wind blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.

Peter Hawkins, US psychologist

 

Every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

Peter Drucker, US management author (1909-2005)

 

When the rate of change outside is greater than the rate of change inside the end is in sight.

Jack Welch, US executive, utility chief (b. 1935)

 

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.

William Bridges, US engineer, researcher, educator (b. 1934)

 

Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life.

Alvin Toffler, US management author, editor (b. 1928)