Leon Wieseltier Quotes

When Colin Powell showed up as Secretary of State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have computers on their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices. I mean, so you're thinking how do we operate in this new environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can't expect people to change if I don't try to model it and lead it.

You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.

I have never come across a technology that doesn't change. This is inevitable. You have to adapt your systems as technology develops.

… people who have built a business doing it the old way think it would be better if things could be more stable for longer periods of time. But you have to remember, new inventions are not inherently disruptive. Invention is only disruptive if customers say, “Hey, I like this better than the old way”.

I think if you ignore the generation after yours, you will be obsolete very quickly.

I get asked all the time, What do you do differently than 10 years ago, or what will you do differently in the years to come?' In the years to come, I have no idea.

You can only adjust to so much history in your life. I still have trouble texting.

Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.

I use an IBM Thinkpad. I just use it like a typewriter, but when I started using it in 1987, I thought I won't be able to write anymore, so I thought I'd go back to the typewriter. But you couldn't go back to the typewriter after using the computer.

People who feared IBM were wrong, ... Technology is ever-changing.

Doing business is all about providing a good product or service to your customers. A good businessman is he who knows that what is successful today may not be so tomorrow. Technology changes so fast, and so do people's needs and wants. That's why it would do well for a businessman to know how to adapt to change. He must constantly reinvent the business, or it won't last.

Technology is always evolving, and companies.. not just search companies.. can't be afraid to take advantage of change.

Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference.

Technology is constantly changing and brings you automatically into the present. In that way, it automatically makes you build for this time.

I'm building on purpose. I'm building that tipping point. I'm building that law of diffusion of innovation.

The fact that I have entered into IT-related business is proof that businesses have to evolve and keep with time. One has to re-invent continuously.

At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin.

Let's face it, the U.S. government is woefully, woefully behind in all of its policies that affect the use of technology.

Change is constant in a progressive country.

There have been advances in the technology of beauty that I think are great. & you know what? Use it.

We cannot continue doing the same thing and expect different results

I decided this early on at Justice: if the traditional way was the most effective way of doing something, then we'd maintain it. But if it was not functioning at optimum levels, we would be doing the country a disservice by continuing to do things "like we've always done them."

You don't have to be a spiritual seeker, you can be a businessman dealing with the revolution in computers. You could be a congressman, or a scientist. No matter what area of life and endeavor we are in we are seeing the signs of new-paradigm thinking.

Technology is, in the broadest sense, mind or intelligence or purpose blending with nature.