Management development providers GNP publish a monthly set of handy 'quotable quotes' for anyone to use in presentations, speeches or training sessions. Arranged into 100 'themes' including vision, change, leadership, teamwork, communication, motivation and innovation, TrainingZONE has arranged to bring you the quotes on a regular basis. Below are the seventh set, on the theme of 'HABIT'.
"Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature."
George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, essayist (1856-1950)
"If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong."
Charles Kettering, US engineer, inventor (1876-1958)
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
Ed Foreman, US politician, entrepreneur (b.1933)
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common."
John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704)
"It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away."
Kenich Ohmae, Japanese management consultant (b.1943)
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle, Greek philosopher, scientist, physician (384-322BC)
"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention largely because they regard such departure as criticism of themselves."
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician (1872-1970)
"It is never too late to give up your prejudices."
Henry David Thoreau, US essayist, poet (1817-1862)
All quotations drawn from '1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training' published by GNP Ltd.
