“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”
— Abraham Lincoln Primary source“History, in the objective meaning of the word, is the process of change; in the subjective meaning, it is the study of how and why one situation changes into another.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“Things do not change; we change.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“As usual in human affairs, what determines the behavior are incentives for the decision-maker, and getting the incentives right is a very, very important lesson.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“The person who is the star of a previous era is often the last one to adapt to change.”
— Andrew S. Grove Primary source“A good example is the best sermon.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Biological creatures ordinarily prefer effort minimization in routine activities and don’t like removals of long-enjoyed benefits.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“We stated before that men’s ideas change slowly and that a nation’s ideas change even more slowly. It takes shocks—hard shocks—to change a nation’s psychology.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“If you want to change behaviors, you have to change motivations.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
— William Blake Primary source“Part of what you must learn is how to handle mistakes and new facts that change the odds. Life, in part, is like a poker game, wherein you have to learn to quit sometimes when holding a much-loved hand.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“Strategic change doesn’t just start at the top. It starts with your calendar.”
— Andrew S. Grove Primary source“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.”
— Charlie Munger Disputed“In technology, whatever can be done will be done.”
— Andrew S. Grove Primary sourceMotivation Incentives Technology Example Role Model