Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to predict, with at least a fair success, the outcome of his own actions. To do this, he must be able to predict how the environment will respond to his acts. Sanity, itself, thus hinges on man's ability to predict his immediate, personal future on the basis of information fed him by the environment.
One of the definitions of sanity, itself, is the ability to tell real from unreal. Shall we need a new definition?
ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness.
ALVIN TOFFLER, The Third Wave
Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Powershift
Desire may reflect anything from a desperate need to a transitory want. In either case, wealth is anything that satisfies the craving. It applies balm to the itch. It may, in fact, gratify more than one desire at a time. We may want a touch of beauty on our living room wall. A painting, even an inexpensive reproduction, may provide a small surge of pleasure every time we pause to look at it. The same work of art may simultaneously fulfill our desire to impress visitors with our splendid good taste, or our social importance. But wealth can also be a bank account, a bicycle, a hoard of food or a health insurance policy.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Revolutionary Wealth
Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock
The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
ALVIN TOFFLER, The Culture Consumers
Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt. But if we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature, science fiction has immense value as a mind-stretching force for the creation of the habit of anticipation. Our children should be studying Arthur C. Clarke, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Robert Sheckley, not because these writers can tell them about rocket ships and time machines but, more important, because they can lead young minds through an imaginative exploration of the jungle of political, social, psychological, and ethical issues that will confront these children as adults.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock
Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.
ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock
