Poet W H Auden        “Far-sighted as falcons, they looked down another future”

French futurist Gaston Berger        “Looking at the future disturbs the present”

Yogi Berra        “The future ain’t what it used to be”

Conservative political thinker Edmund Burke        “You can never plan the future by the past”

Poet T S Eliot        “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past”

Science fiction writer William Gibson        “The future is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed”.

Statesman Gladstone        “You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side”

Definitive marketer Philip Kotler         “To prepare for the twenty-first century, companies need to imagine alternative scenarios for the marketplace of the future, and use these scenarios to stimulate their thinking about possible contingencies and strategies. My advice, therefore, is get busy building scenarios and determining what they imply in the way of strategic planning. Do not think business as usual”

Ian Wilson, scenario planner        “However good our futures research may be, we shall never be able to escape from the ultimate dilemma that all our knowledge is about the past, and all our decisions are about the future”

A mayor in early twentieth century Pennsylvania        “I can foresee the day when there willl be one of these (a telephone) in every town”

Arab proverb        “He who predicts the future lies, even if he tells the truth”

From contributor, Sameer S, origin not revealed,        "The journey is the best part of the destination."

and         "In aspiring the future, do not, not live the present"

Brian Carilli, lab designer in the School of Engineering, Stanford University, California         "Stanford has a product. A lot of people don't know this. We produce a product, and our product is the future."

Jorge Luis Borges        "Every epoch is an epoch of transition. We know only one thing about the future or, rather, futures: it will not look like the present"

The following are all from ‘A Word from the Wise’ by Rosemarie Jarski, Ebury Press (2006), recommended by Bruce LLoyd

Arthur C. Clarke        “This is the first age that has paid much attention to the future, which is rather ironic since we may not have one."

Wendell Berry        “Our obsession with security is a measure of the power we have granted the future to hold over us.”

Robertson Davies       “The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to an idealized past.”

Edward G. Robinson        “If He has given us one marvellous gift, it is that He does not permit us to know the future. It would be unbearable.”

John Sladek        “The future will be exactly like the past, only more expensive.”

Isak Dinesen        “God made the world round so we could never see too far down the road.”

Niels Bohr        “Predicting is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

Alfred North Whitehead        “It is the business of the future to be dangerous.”

Jon Bon Jovi        “Map out your future, but do it in pencil.”

D.H. Lawrence        “I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.”

The following quotes were used in a UNIDO seminar, Technology Foresight Training for Corporate Managers, 19.-22.2.2007, in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Sayings about the future - Historic quotes:

"Worldwide there will be a market for 4 computers. " (1946)

"3 existing computers would handle all the calculations that would ever be needed in England."(Hartree, 1951)

"There will be a human base on Mars by 2000." (1967).

"In 50 years the world will be without oil." (A.Toffler, 1970‘s)

"Nuclear fusion will be operational by 2020." (quoted in 1970´s) and also repeated in 2000 for 2050

"People will not buy quartz watches." (Swiss watchmakers)

"In 2010 most cars will use hydrogen fuel." (1980´s)

"There is no market for personal computers." (IBM).

John Naisbitt (1996) "The Euro will never happen."

Most people in Latvia in 1980 did not believe that Latvia could be out of communism.– similarly in Russia in 1980.

"Colombia in 15 years will import coffee." (1990)

"The year 2000 (Y2K) will see a global computer crash."

Now going forward:

"This is the future, there are no alternatives."

"In next 20 years the main problem will be climate change."

"The world will be much more dependent on ICT networks."

"Gold will be the currency of the future."

"The only certainty is uncertainty."

"Water will be an expensive commodity in 2020."

"The future belongs not to the strongest but to the fastest."

If you have any good ones you would like to share, please mail them to : queries@samiconsulting.co.uk