37 Alvin Toffler Quotes That Are So Relevant
Alvin Toffler was a renowned American futurist, author, journalist and educator, famous for his elaborate discourses on digital and communication revolutions. He compared the exponential growth of modern technologies with subsequent cultural impacts worldwide. His involvement with the Fortune magazine as a co-editor fuelled his first major success ‘Future Shock’, which went on to become a best seller, with over 6 million copies. In this book, he famously stated that the illiterates of tomorrow wouldn’t be the one who cannot read, but the ones who haven’t learnt to unlearn. He cemented his designation as a legend of this genre of writing by releasing The Third Wave, Revolutionary Wealth and Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century. Apart from receiving fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Ellis was presented with McKinsey Foundation Book Award, Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres and Brown University's Independent Award. We have collected Alvin Toffler’s quotes and sayings from his writings, speeches, observations etc. Zoom through quotes from this iconic futurist from America.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate.
If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.
The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.
No serious futurist deals in prediction. These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.
We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots religion, nation, community, family, or profession are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust.
Nobody knows the future with certainty. We can, however, identify ongoing patterns of change.
Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock.
The great growling engine of change - technology.
The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.
You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.
You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.
Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.
One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.
Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.
People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice.
The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I'm talking about an organic computer - about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor.
Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.
Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.
To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester went broke.
A library is a hospital for the mind.” - Anonymous
Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.
The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.” - Chinese proverb
Most managers were trained to be the thing they most despise - bureaucrats.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” - Chinese proverb
The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order.
The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
We futurists have a magic button. We follow every statement about a failed forecast with 'yet.'
