Quotes by Alvin Toffler

“The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the society will run itself quite nicely until they - at some distant point i...”

“Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt. But if we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature, s...”

“Youve got to think about big things while youre doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”

“Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.”

“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.”

“You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.”

“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.”

“Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.”

“Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate.”

“Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.”

“The great growling engine of change - technology.”

“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.”

“Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.”

“Nobody knows the future with certainty. We can, however, identify ongoing patterns of change.”

“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.”

“Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock.”

“One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt. But if we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature, s...”