Joel A. Barker Quotations

When most of us hear the phrase, 'survival of the fittest,' we assume it originated with Charles Darwin. It did not. The phrase doesn't exist anywhere in Darwin's first edition of 'Origin of the Species.'

The invention of the micro-loan was a big surprise to me. Who would have guessed loans of less than $20 made to poor people in undeveloped countries could create thriving local economies? And, even more surprisingly, that they more reliably pay off their debts than the wealthy of the world.

The past guarantees you nothing in the future if the rules change.

Your successful past will block your visions of the future.

A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn't go by yourself.

Usually the first problems you solve with the new paradigm are the ones that were unsolvable with the old paradigm.

When you think about it, if the fittest always won, all forests should be completely homogeneous. One species should supplant all others as the most superior competitor. But it doesn't happen that way. Nor does it happen that way in the marketplace.

When you drop any new idea in the pond of the world, you get a ripple effect. You have to be aware that you will be creating a cascade of change.

The ultimate function of prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it. Your successful past will block your visions of the future.

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.