People are effective because they say 'no,' because they say, 'this isn't for me.'

Almost everybody today believes that nothing in economic history has ever moved as fast as, or had a greater impact than, the Information Revolution. But the Industrial Revolution moved at least as fast in the same time span, and had probably an equal impact if not a greater one.

Succession planning often results in the selection of a weaker representation of yourself.

...because knowledge rapidly deteriorates unless it is used constantly, maintaining within an organization an activity that is used only intermittently guarantees incompetence.

..there is need for a person to be generally educated. Otherwise you shrivel up much too soon. Whether this means reading the bible (I read the New Testament every few years) or reading the great 19th century novelists (the greatest and shrewdest judge of people and of society who ever lived), or classical philosophy (which I cannot read-it puts me to sleep immediately), or history (which is secondary). What matters is that the knowledge worker, by the time he or she reaches middle age, has developed and nourished a human being rather than a tax accountant or a hydraulic engineer.

During periods of discontinuous, abrupt change, the essence of adaptation involves a keen sensitivity to what should be abandoned - not what should be changed or introduced. A willingness to depart from the familiar has distinct survival value.

Conductors do not know how the oboe does its work, but they know what the oboe should contribute.