We still think and talk of the basic problems of an industrial society as problems that can be solved by changing the "system," that is the superstructure of political organization. Yet the real problems lie within the [industrial] enterprise. On the contrary, it is the solution of the problems of the enterprise that will shape the system under which we live.

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.

We now stand face to face with the main objection so often raised against all endeavours to remedy industrial and social diseases by the expansion of public control. ...The strife, danger, and waste of industrial competition are necessary conditions to industrial vitality.

If we are to prevent this climactic danger from working its worst, we will simply all have to work together, and for a long time. The principle obstacle is, of course, inertia, resistance to change—huge, worldwide, interlocking industrial, economic, and political establishments all beholden to fossil fuels, when fossil fuels are the problem. In the United States, as the evidence for the seriousness of global warming mounts, the political will to do something about it seems to be shriveling.

We are always our own greatest limitation, obstruction and hindrance.

The troubles are much more deep-rooted because of the inherent difficulties confronting a man who seeks to conduct his business on an ideal basis within an unjust social order.

The capitalist system of production, once it had given all it was capable of giving, became an abysmal obstacle to the progress of humanity.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

Three great obstacles to progress: guilt, envy, and resentment.

I think the big irony is that industrial labor was really disabling, whether that was coal mines or shoemaking or farm work, industrial farm work. Those are really hard on bodies and often on minds, and it was very disabling. So even while it excluded disability at the beginning, it created a lot of disability.

The social insecurity of the worker is the real cause of their being a peril to the state.

But these two have been intractable problems for decades, even a century. Their root causes have been social injustice and economic injustice. Brilliant minds and experts have been harnessed to tackle these problems. And still the problems persist.

The biggest threat to society (old or modern) arises when it gets prone to oppression and worse still, when the critics of oppression become too microscopic even to be counted on one's fingers.

Institutional blindness is a major threat to the future of all corporations.