Dee Hock > Quotes

“The essence of community, its heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of value; things we do and share because we care for others, and for the good of the place.”
― Dee Hock, One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization

“Community is composed of that which we don't attempt to measure, for which we keep no record and ask no recompense. Most are things we cannot measure no matter how hard we try.”
― Dee Hock, One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization

“Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral.”
― Dee Hock

“Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever.
Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.”
― Dee Hock

“One of the more fascinating things about human behavior is the degree to which we conceive of countless boundaries that constrain and inhibit us in extraordinary ways, even though they are nothing but mental constructs that, in reality, do not exist.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“We never fully understand what we have been told until we experience it. Learning not embedded in experience is forever crippled. Unfortunately, our present society is schooled, not educated.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.”
― Dee Hock

“Much of that which passes for conversation these days is the lobbing of small bombs of dogma and little clots of banality at one another.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“One of the more curious facts about human beings is that they can spend a day of introspection without discovering what is obvious to anyone who has spent a half hour in their company.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“If we examine with clear eyes what we have done to the majority of people on earth, to the earth itself, and to all other forms of life thereon, we can only hope that there are no gods, or if there are, that they are not just.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“The greatest achievement in life is to become your own best self. Nothing external can help with that.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Certainty is the place where questions go to die.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Children are easily taught, for they readily accept and believe lies told by their elders.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“The ultimate insanity is to so organize society that power, wealth, and information are concentrated in the hands of so few people that they have the power, for whatever reason, to put to death our species and the living earth as well. But so we have.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Knowledge is never in doubt. Wisdom is never certain.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Education that gives priority to measurement rather than values, to efficiency rather than conscience, to information rather than ethics, provides no barrier to barbarity and violence. The Holocaust was perpetrated by a society of the most disciplined, highly educated people on earth.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Far better than a precise plan is a clear sense of direction and compelling beliefs. And that lies within you. The question is, how do you evoke it?”
― Dee Hock

“Just as bad money drives out good, the broad, deep, inclusive renaissance mind is being driven out by the narrow, specialized, technical mind.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Intent is in the composer, interpretation is in the conductor, rendering is in the instrumentalist, perception is in the listener, sound is in the notes, and rhythm is in the intervals. Music is the harmonious relationship between them all. Relationship is beauty.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey.”
― Dee Hock

“The wise make great use of adversity. The foolish whine about it.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Do not get angry, stubborn, and imperious. Get curious.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“If we pay great attention to the meaning of each moment of our unique life, the meaning of life in general will attend to itself.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Nothing can be more violent and merciless than a group of true believers, no matter what they choose to believe.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“There is nothing that dictates behavior more than what we want others to think of us. When that happens, we become a reflection in our own mind of what we believe is reflected in the mind of another, neither of which has the slightest chance of being correct. Talk about dogs chasing tails.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“The most common lesson of history is that the butchery of one mass of people by another is, in the minds of the butchers, sanctioned by their god.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Ideas are so transcendent and alive compared to language that thousands of variations of each may be written without fully capturing any.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“Great thought, great achievement, and great love have this in common: all involve great risk.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“If Satan were twins, one the Republican nominee for president, the other the nominee of the Democrats, and God ran as an independent, can there be any doubt who would come in last?”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

“With every inhalation, I take. With every exhalation, I give. How grand it is not to buy, sell, hold, or hoard breath. Would that it were so with money. Enjoy breathing while you can, for unless something changes, it won’t be long until government awards ownership of the atmosphere to some commercial corporation to price and meter out as they please.”
― Dee Hock, Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition