Quote

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

Alvin Toffler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alvin Toffler
Age: 87 †
Born: 1928
Born: October 4
Died: 2016
Died: June 27
Futures Studies
Futurist
Journalist
Pedagogue
Science Fiction Writer
Sociologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Capacity
Future
Change
Men
Biological
Overwhelmed
Shock
Limited

More quotes by Alvin Toffler

Image
The political technology of the Industrial age is no longer appropriate technology for the new civilization taking form around us. Our politics are obsolete.
Alvin Toffler
Image
One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.
Alvin Toffler
Image
The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.
Alvin Toffler
Image
We need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies - images of potential tomorrows.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Humanity faces a quantum leap forward. It faces the deepest social upheaval and creative restructuring of all time. Without clearly recognizing it, we are engaged in building a remarkable new civilization from the ground up. This is the meaning of the Third Wave.
Alvin Toffler
Image
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.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Idea-assassins rush forward to kill any new suggestion on the grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, no matter how absurd.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Each new machine or technique, in a sense, changes all existing machines and techniques, by permitting us to put them together into new combinations. The number of possible combinations rises exponentially as the number of new machines or techniques rises arithmetically. Indeed, each new combination may, itself, be regarded as a new super-machine.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Freedom of expression is no longer a political nicety, but a precondition for economic competitiveness.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Most managers were trained to be the thing they most despise - bureaucrats.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Many countries today have begun the transition from an industrial wealth system and civilization to a knowledge-based system - without appreciating that a new wealth system is impossible without a corresponding new way of life.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Human beings were held accountable long before there were corporate bureaucracies. If the knight didn't deliver, the king cut off his head.
Alvin Toffler
Image
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.
Alvin Toffler
Image
One of the most highly developed skills in contemporary Western civilization is dissection: the split -up of problems into their smallest possible components. We are good at it. So good, we often forget to put the pieces back together again.
Alvin Toffler
Image
The great growling engine of change - technology.
Alvin Toffler
Image
To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways
Alvin Toffler
Image
If you don't have a viable strategy, you will be defeated by someone who does.
Alvin Toffler
Image
Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.
Alvin Toffler
Image
By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education.
Alvin Toffler