Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.

A learning organization is an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.

You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.

All great things have small beginnings.

The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization.

The world is made of Circles And we think in straight Lines

Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing ‘patterns of change’ rather than static ‘snapshots.’

The key to success isn't just thinking about what we are doing but doing something about what we are thinking.

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.

A shared vision is not an idea...it is rather, a force in people's hearts...at its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question 'What do we want to create?

Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.

It's so wonderful... if your whole day is rotten, once they start the music, it seems to melt away.

Buy not what you want, but what you have need of; what you do not want is dear at a farthing.

Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves

If I decide to run for office, I will release my tax returns. Absolutely. I would love to do that.

I am certainly a liberal.

If you let the reality of the business side get to you, it can turn you, and that's not good at all.

(3) 'IS IT A SYSTEM...?' ... Ultimately, I suspect, this is a question about which the reader should form his own judgement by study of the original text.

Ten properties of an object, according to Leonardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and stillness.

I think 'SNL' was such a unique thing because it was material you created and you're very comfortable with it, even though the setting was pressure-packed.

In Haverford on the Platte the townspeople still talk of Lucy Gayheart.