"Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself."

Mark Twain

"It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope."

Pope John XXIII

"A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache."

Catherine the Great

"When the winds of change blow, some people build windmills, others build walls."

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Reinhold Niebuhr - The Alcoholics Prayer

"Things do not change; we change."

Henry Thoreau (1817–1862)

"Uncertainty allows for the possibility of improving the future in a way that certainty doesn't."

Mike Wills (1946–)

"One cannot step into the same river twice."

Herakleitos

"May you live in interesting times."

Ancient Chinese Curse

"Concept is a vague concept."

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)

"People are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them."

Epictetus

"Confidence is not knowing that you will never fail, but knowing that you can survive failure"

"Of crimes — none is greater than having many desires
Of disasters — none is greater than not knowing when one has enough.
Of defects — none brings more sorrow than the desire to attain.
Therefore, the contentment you have when you know that you have enough, is abiding contentment indeed."

Lao Tzu (c. 550 B.C.) — Tao Te Ching (Chapter 46)

A fish only discovers its need for water when it is no longer in it. Our own culture is like water to a fish. It sustains us. We live and breathe through it.

Dr. F Trompenaars

Culture is a shared system of meanings It dictates what we pay attention to, how we act and what we value.

Dr. F Trompenaars

Culture is the software of the mind

Dr. G Hofstede

Culture is a thin but very important veneer that you must be careful not to scratch. People from different cultures are basically the same and respond in the same way. However, make sure that you understand their basic customs and show an interest and willingness to learn the differences between your cultures.

Mike Wills

In order to understand people we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language as far as we can — not language in the narrow sense of the word, but language of the mind. Something that goes much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of other people.

Nehru

It costs up to ten times our managers’ annual salary to send them on a three year foreign assignment.

CBI report, 1994

Fachtwissen allein genügt nicht.

Professor Torsten Kühlmann

Culturally clumsy expatriates can cause damage which is only noticed after their repatriation and which will easily be a multiple of the direct cost of their assignement.

Dr. Geert Hofstede

Ich hatte mich nicht genügend schlau gemacht über die kulturellen Eigenarten des Landes. Es war mein schwerster Fehler.

Gunnar P Wilmot, ex Boss McCann-Erickson Frankfurt

"The customer may not always be right, but the customer is always the customer"

Mike Wills, 1984

"A customer is the most important person on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption to our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider on our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so."

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)

"There is nothing so useless than doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

Peter Drucker (1909– )

"The more you know, the less you understand."

Lao-Tzu, 5 Century B.C. - Tao-Te Ching

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself."

Chinese Proverb

"They know enough who know how to learn."

Henry Adams (1838–1918)

"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon, philosophy without action is worthless."

Soichiro Honda

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

Woody Allen

"The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression"

Sir John Harvey-Jones

"You can't predict the future — but you can make it happen"

Mike Wills 1994

"The biggest cause of problems is solutions."

Unknown

"Actually, there is a defect in the approach to problem-solving more primitive and more destructive than impatiently inadequate attempts to find instant solutions, a defect even more ubiquitous and universal. It is the hope that problems will go away of their own accord."

Scott Peck - The Road Less Traveled

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself."

Eric Fromm

"I am that I am."

Old Testament

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

John Lennon

"When making your choice in life, do not forget to live."

Samuel Johnson

"The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely."

Carl Jung

"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away."

Goethe

"It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning round."

Thoreau

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 A.D.)

"In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue"

James Q Wilson

"Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny."

Traditional saying

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Abraham Lincoln

"There is nothing noble in being superior to others. The true nobility is being superior to your previous self."

Ancient Hindu Proverb

"The confusion caused when one's mind overrides the body's desire to shake the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately needs it."

Seen in Gino's Cafe Bar, near Marylebone Station, London

“What is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.”

St. Augustine (354-430), Confessions

"If you go flying back in time and you see yourself flying forward, it's probably best to avoid eye contact!"

adapted from Jack Handy

“Training is a critical process within the business. The quality requirement for training is no different than the quality requirement for any other critical process”

Mike Wills 1995