Quotes About Change

How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?

Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance. The

Revolutions are usually made by small networks of agitators rather than by the masses. If you want to launch a revolution, don't ask yourself, 'How many people support my ideas?' Instead, ask yourself, 'How many of my supporters are capable of effective collaboration?

Studying history aims to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine.

To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses. Ten

The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

We always prepare ourselves for the previous enemy, even when we face an altogether new menace.

Capitalism won the Cold War because distributed data processing works better than centralized data processing, at least in periods of accelerating changes.

In the early twenty-first century, politics is consequently bereft of grand visions. Government has become mere administration. It manages the country, but it no longer leads it.

individual humans are likely to be replaced by an integrated network

Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time. Today

In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products but above all to reinvent yourself again and again.

Peasants were worried about the future not just because they had more cause for worry, but also because they could do something about it.

Bank clerks and travel agents, who a short time ago seemed completely secure from automation, have become endangered species.

True, hundreds of millions may nevertheless go on believing in Islam, Christianity or Hinduism. But numbers alone don't count for much in history. History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses. Ten thousand years ago most people were hunter-gatherers and only a few pioneers in the Middle East were farmers.

For Homo sapiens has rewritten the rules of the game. This single ape species has managed within 70,000 years to change the global ecosystem in radical and unprecedented ways. Our impact is already on a par with that of ice ages and tectonic movements. Within a century, our impact may surpass that of the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Perhaps in the twenty-first century populist revolts will be staged not against an economic elite that exploits people but against an economic elite that does not need them anymore.6 This may well be a losing battle. It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation.

But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust.

Unlike nuclear war—which is a future potential—climate change is a present reality.

Traditional racism is waning, but the world is now full of "culturists.

The liberal political system was shaped during the industrial era to manage a world of steam engines, oil refineries, and television sets. It has difficulty dealing with the ongoing revolutions in information technology and biotechnology.

So what should we be teaching? Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching "the four Cs"—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.3 More broadly, they believe, schools should downplay technical skills and emphasize general-purpose life skills. Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, learn new things, and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.