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Portrait of Alvin Toffler

Alvin Toffler

(1928–2016) Futurist United States

88 quotes in 539 categories

Future shock describes the feeling when too much change happens too fast, leaving people confused. Alvin Toffler also points out that doing something helps us truly understand it, more than just hearing or seeing. He notes that new machines and ideas constantly reshape older ones, making the world feel smaller.

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Alvin Toffler was a futurist from the United States, best known for Future shock.

Quick Facts About Alvin Toffler

Born: October 4, 1928
Died: June 27, 2016
Nationality: United States
Profession: Futurist
Notable works: Future shock
Spouse: Heidi Toffler

About Alvin Toffler

Alvin Eugene Toffler was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's outstanding futurists.

Awards & Honors

Officer of Arts and Letters doctor honoris causa of Keiō University

Quotes by Alvin Toffler

Knowledge is promiscuous. It mates and gives birth to more knowledge.

Birth

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It is always easier to talk about change than to make it.

Change

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The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order.

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

Change

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Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.

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Knowledge is knowing... or knowing where to find out.

Inspirational

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Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

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A library is a hospital for the mind.” - Anonymous

Hospital

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The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.

Age

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We need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies - images of potential tomorrows.

Dream

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The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.

Culture

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“The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

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Freedom of expression is no longer a political nicety, but a precondition for economic competitiveness.

Competitiveness

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

Ability

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A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it.

Blind

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The computer is a greater threat to the [nuclear] family than all the abortion laws and gay rights movements and pornography in…

Abortion

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Our moral responsibility is not to stop future, but to shape it...to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the…

Character

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In the year 2000 an illiterate person will not be someone who can't read or write, but someone who is not able…

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If we do not learn from history, we shall be compelled to relive it. True. But if we do not change the…

Change

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Future shock is the disorientation that affects an individual, a corporation, or a country when he or it is overwhelmed by change…

Change

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The political technology of the Industrial age is no longer appropriate technology for the new civilization taking form around us. Our politics…

Age

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We need people who can see straight ahead and deep into the problems. Those are the experts. But we also need peripheral…

Dreams

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It would be a mistake to assume that the present day educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid…

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Many countries today have begun the transition from an industrial wealth system and civilization to a knowledge-based system - without appreciating that…

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The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass…

Bureaucracy

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Each new machine or technique, in a sense, changes all existing machines and techniques, by permitting us to put them together into…

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In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized…

Change

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Interruptions: The average worker gets interrupted five times each hour. It takes an average of 5 minutes to handle each interruption and…

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Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to…

Ability

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Industrial vomit...fills our skies and seas. Pesticides and herbicides filter into our foods. Twisted automobile carcasses, aluminum cans, non-returnable glass bottles and…

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Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet…

Being alone

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We will only keep people from fleeing the countryside into urban favelas, villas miseries, shantytowns and squatter villages when the productivity gap…

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“Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt. But if we…

Books

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The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the…

Bears

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It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.

Caution

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“4. Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.”

Democracy

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Never in history has distance meant less.

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Change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways

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You cannot get a new economy without a new society.

Economics

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If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.

Ecommerce

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Alvin Toffler by topic

Change (15) Time (12) Future shock (10)