“You can't understand where someone's going unless you understand where they've been.”
“Those who built the visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going — for where you are going will almost certainly change”
Source: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, 1994, p. xx
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James C. Collins 22
American business consultant and writer 1958Related quotes
Source: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

Source: Demian (1919), p. 147
Context: Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of "permitted" and "forbidden." You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered "forbidden." The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. Each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden — forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, "Spirit expounds"
Translated by Arthur Waley
Page 62
Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse

“You learn by going where you have to go.”
Quoted in Wit and Wisdom of Women: Classic and Contemporary Quotes https://books.google.com/books?id=T2g32LwD_GwC&pg=PA86&dq=mia+farrow+quotes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9qLLYsq3TAhWGRSYKHT71C5MQ6AEIRDAG#v=onepage&q=mia%20farrow%20quotes&f=false, ed. Tod Haffer, p. 86