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 in the future - will take over the reigns. Yet the fact is that the society is not running itself nicely... because the rest of us need all the energy, brains, imagination and talent that young people can bring to bear down on our difficulties. For society to attempt to solve its desperate problems without the full participation of even very young people is imbecile.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The great growling engine of change - technology.

Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.

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

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

You__e got to think about big things while you__e doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.