Marilyn Ferguson quotes - page 5

We can begin anywhere-everywhere. "Let there be peace," says a bumper sticker, "and let it begin with me." Let there be health, learning, relationship, right uses of power, meaningful work.... Let there be transformation, and let it begin with me. (Marilyn Ferguson)
Once these ideas coalesce into a coherent new paradigm grounded in transformation, we will see that humanity is both a part of creation and its steward as well, "a product of evolution and an instrument of evolution." View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
The global village is a reality. We are joined by satellite, supersonic travel, four thousand international meetings each year, tens of thousands of multinational companies, international organizations and newsletters and journals, even an emergent pan-culture of music, movies, art, humor. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
If we see each other as obstacles to progress, our assumption is the first and greatest obstacle. Mistrust is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our old-paradigm consciousness has guaranteed its own dark expectations; it is our collective negative self-image. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
The greatest single obstacle to the resolution of great problems in the past was thinking they could not be solved-a conviction based on mutual distrust. Psychologists and sociologists have found that most of us are more highly motivated than we think each other to be! View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
All countries are economically and ecologically involved with each other, politically enmeshed. The old gods of isolationism and nationalism are tumbling, artifacts like the stone deities of Easter Island. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
We have had a profound paradigm shift about the Whole Earth. We know it now as a jewel in space, a fragile water planet. And we have seen that it has no natural borders. It is not the globe of our school days with its many-colored nations. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Today there are millions of residents of that "great country, the whole earth." View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Relationships are the crucible of the transformative process. They are bound to alter, given the individual's greater willingness to risk, trust in intuition, sense of wider connection with others, recognition of cultural conditioning. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Relatives, colleagues, friends, and marriage partners, understandably threatened by these changes, often exert pressure on the individual...These pressures only widen the gap. You don't stop an immigrant by trying to revive his hopes for the Old World. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Many old friendships and acquaintances fall away; new friendships, even a whole new support network, take their place. Based as they are on shared values and a shared journey, these new relationships are perhaps more intense. (Marilyn Ferguson)
Ongoing personal transformation moves one away from the Old World- sometimes abruptly, more often over years. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, people change jobs, even vocations, in the wake of shifting perceptions. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
L i g h t . . . light, wrote T. S. Eliot, visible reminder of invisible light. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Always, the vision of evolution toward the light. Light is the oldest and most pervasive metaphor in spiritual experience. We speak of enlightenment, the city of light, the Light of the World, children of light, the "white-light experience." View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
If work becomes rewarding, not just obligatory, that also reorders values and priorities. We will look at the evidence for a new paradigm, based on values, which transcends the old paradigm of economics, with its emphasis on growth, control, manipulation. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Spending is an opiate to many people, a balm to disappointments, frustrations, emptiness. If the individual transforms that inner distress, there is less need for drugs and distractions. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Buying, selling, owning, saving, sharing, keeping, investing, giving-these are outward expressions of inward needs. When those needs change, as in personal transformation, economic patterns change. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Making a life, not just a living, is essential to one seeking wholeness. Our hunger turns out to be for something different, not something more. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
All over the world, children and young people are being exposed, via the communications revolution, to such ideas. They are not limited to the parochial beliefs of a single culture. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
If we are not learning and teaching we are not awake and alive. Learning is not only like health, it is health. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
The revolutionary principle introduced by Gandhi resolves the paradox of freedom. He called it satyagraha, "soul force" or "truth force." (Marilyn Ferguson)
Generation after generation, humankind fights to preserve the status quo, maintaining "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know," a bit of folk cynicism that assumes the unknown to be dangerous. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
A political paradigm shift might be said to occur when the new values are assimilated by the dominant society. These values then become social dogma to members of a new generation, who marvel that anyone could ever have believed otherwise. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
The Prescription: We must face our pain and conflict. Until we quit denying our failures and muffling our uneasiness, until we confess our bewilderment and alienation, we can't take the next and necessary steps. The political system needs to be transformed, not reformed. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
The Crisis: Our institutions-especially our governing structures-are mechanistic, rigid, fragmented. The world isn't working. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson