Charles Handy Quotes

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.

We are all prisoners of our past. It is hard to think of things except in the way we have always thought of them. But that solves no problems and seldom changes anything.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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

Citizenship is the chance to make a difference to the place where you belong.

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.

Learning is experience understood in tranquility.

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

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.

The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.

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

Most of us prefer to walk backward into the future, a posture that may be uncomfortable but which at least allows us to keep on looking at familiar things as long as we can.

A leader shapes and shares a vision, which gives point to the work of others.

The best learning happens in real life with real problems and real people and not in classrooms.

You have to stand outside the box to see how the box can be re-designed.

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

We learn by reflecting on what has happened. The process seldom works in reverse, although most educational processes assume that it does. We hope that we can teach people how to live before they live, or how to manage before they manage.

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?

In a knowledge economy, a good business is a community with a purpose, not a piece of property.

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

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.

To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.

The future is not inevitable. We can influence it, if we know what we want it to be.

Talent comes with an individual name tag.

We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.

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