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.

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

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.

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.

The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.