Drayton Quotes & Sayings

Your brand image is primarily an emotional construct. Emotion is probably always more powerful in swaying people than reason, but people like to be able to rationalize their choices. — Drayton Bird

What is your personal definition of "good"?
A world in which everyone is universally empathetic and exercises love and respect with full change-making power. — Bill Drayton

We started Ashoka here in India with a simple idea: that you needed social entrepreneurs to deal with problems that don't fit the business paradigm. — Bill Drayton

The mind is free, whate'er afflict the man, A King's a King, do Fortune what she can. — Michael Drayton

With much we surfeit; plenty makes us poor. — Michael Drayton

Public service and respect for ideas is a recurrent theme in both the American and Australian sides of my family. — Bill Drayton

Thus when we fondly flatter our desires, Our best conceits do prove the greatest liars. — Michael Drayton

Organizations must shift away from repetitive-function hierarchies with rules and enforcement and walls. Instead, we must migrate rapidly to becoming a global 'team of teams' that comes together in whatever combination necessary to add the greatest value to the changes underway. — Bill Drayton

What is our job as entrepreneurs if not to change things that are crazy? — Bill Drayton

The social entrepreneurs are governments' best friends. — Bill Drayton

If everyone is a changemaker, there's no way a problem can outrun a solution — Bill Drayton

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. — Michael Drayton

In 1962, when I was 19, I visited India. With introductions from people involved in the U.S. civil rights movement, I was able to visit with several of the leading Gandhians there. The hundred-to-one difference in average per capita income between America and India at the time was a stark reality for the people who became my friends there. — Bill Drayton

You can't be a change-maker by reading a book. — Bill Drayton

The first - the most obvious test of a true social entrepreneur - is are they possessed, really possessed by an idea. — Bill Drayton

The falcon and the dove sit there together, and the one of them doth prune the other's feather. — Michael Drayton

Imagine a world where everyone is really a change maker. — Bill Drayton

Social entrepreneurs are married to a vision of, for example, a better way of helping young people grow up or of delivering global healthcare. They simply will not stop because they cannot be happy until their vision becomes the new pattern. — Bill Drayton

Entrepreneurs cannot be happy people until they have seen their visions become the new reality across all of society. — Bill Drayton

The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck & to provide new ways to get it unstuck. — Bill Drayton

Here's my advice: The first step to becoming a changemaker (the only secure job going forward) is to give oneself permission, i.e. to ignore - politely, of course - all those who say 'Don't do it — Bill Drayton

To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who's never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind. — Jerome Drayton

Men fear to lose as much as they hope to gain. — Drayton Bird

Every successful organization has to make the transition from a world defined primarily by repetition to one primarily defined by change. This is the biggest transformation in the structure of how humans work together since the Agricultural Revolution. — Bill Drayton

Here when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, And finds that by his strength but vainly he doth strive; His tail takes in his teeth, and bending like a bow, That's to the compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw: Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand, That, bended end to end, and flerted from the hand, Far off itself doth cast. so does the salmon vaut. And if at first he fail, his second sommersault He instantly assays and from his nimble ring, Still yarking never leaves, Until himself he fling Above the streamful top of the surrounded heap. — Michael Drayton

There are millions of people who can get things done. There are very, very few people who will change the pattern in the whole field. — Bill Drayton

It is your virtue, being men, to try;
And it is ours, by virtue to deny. — Michael Drayton

You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you think
I did
that God put you on earth to blow your father away. — Stephen King

It's not to give people fish It's not to teach them how to fish It's to build a new and better fishing industry — Bill Drayton

Understand the power of asking. — Drayton Bird

We do not know the future, but we are creating it now. How we align the vision we have for a livable place with intelligent actions is what the future of mankind will be. It is all we can do to perfect ourselves. Nature will determine the rest. — Helen Drayton

Every child must master empathy-based ethics because the rules are changing; the less they apply the less learning them has positive impact — Bill Drayton

Most copywriters are like engines. They take a while to warm up to get to the point. — Drayton Bird

Good entrepreneurs can manage, but no one but an entrepreneur can entrepreneur, let alone help build and lead the world's community of leading social entrepreneurs and their top business entrepreneur allies. — Bill Drayton

Entrepreneurs almost always have to step out of existing institutions that embody old ways of doing things to build their vision. — Bill Drayton

It's the combination: big idea with a good entrepreneur: there's nothing more powerful. — Bill Drayton

Yesterday evening Mickey and I and other deluded WAAFs went through the blackout and into the wilds of Hammersmith enduring the journey with the thought of the rollicking, witty West End show, Broadway Follies, studded with stars, to which we WAAFs had been invited free. I might say frightful, I might say terrible, awful, boring, tedious, but they only reveal the inadequacy of words. After the third hour, or so it seemed, I was convinced that I had died and was in hell, watching turn after turn in unending procession, each longer, each less funny, each more unbelievably bad than the last. During the interval, Hendon WAAFs rushed to the bar, scruffy WAAFs, obviously from West Drayton, sat still rollicking with mirth in the Stalls. We tossed back whisky and ginger beer and watched in a stupor the longer, duller, apparently unending second half. After came the journey back in the blackout made blue by our opinions of the evening. — Joan Rice

All the problems sitting there are an invitation for you to be creative, make use of your skills and resources and find a solution. — Bill Drayton

White House cultures inevitably reflect the president's character. Jimmy Carter is a thoroughly honest, good person. So was his White House. — Bill Drayton

Change begets change as much as repetition reinforces repetition. — Bill Drayton

The one single factor that determines society's success is the percentage of change-makers within it. — Bill Drayton

Thomas Jefferson explained, Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.. If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?. — Bill Drayton

What is the most powerful force in the world? And I think you would agree that is a big idea if it is in the hands of an entrepreneur who is actually going to make the idea not only happen, but spread all across society. And we understand that in business but we have need for entrepreneurship just as much in education, human rights, health, and the environment as we do in hotels and steel. — Bill Drayton

So in all humours sportively I range; My muse is rightly of the English strain, That cannot long one fashion entertain. — Michael Drayton

In an increasingly connected world it is less likely that a few people 'manage' everyone else. The new environment requires a shift in the organization of both institutions and societies, one of flexible teams of teams that come together around whatever change opportunities exist and then reform around the next. — Bill Drayton

All transitory titles I detest; a virtuous life I mean to boast alone. Our birth's our sires'; our virtues be our own. — Michael Drayton

When Time shall turne those Amber Lockes to Gray. — Michael Drayton

Everyone says you've got to do a foundation and legal structure to finance social change. What nonsense! — Bill Drayton

Of course you can do it. It doesn't require brilliance. It's just giving yourself permission and then being persistent. Persistent in seeing the problem or opportunity and persistent in thinking about it until you have come up with some interesting ideas that might change the pattern. It's really a mindset, not anything in the objective world - that is the problem. — Bill Drayton

Listening is understanding. The skill of empathy is a must to be able to listen ... One can listen better if one sees the whole. — Bill Drayton

How could any entrepreneur, confronted by such amazing opportunities to help transform the world and to do so with such extraordinary colleagues, be tempted to lose focus? Especially since the work involves such breadth that the boredom of routine or specialization does not exist. — Bill Drayton

The life purpose of the true social entrepreneur is to change the world. — Bill Drayton

The most critical variable [to becoming a change-maker] is one's willingness to give oneself permission. To break the mental chains that make us small because everyone tells us we cannot. — Bill Drayton

Revolutionaries - true revolutionaries - are aggressive, ruthless, and generally seize the main chance, as William Henry Drayton did when he saw that stump-speaking was getting him nowhere. But defenders of the status quo tend toward caution and legalisms and inaction until it is too late — John Buchanan

Happiness lives
in the tomorrow of now.
Find it
before today fades. — Helen Drayton

Must, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see
What beauty it shall be
That Fortune us assigns. — Michael Drayton

We have to teach empathy as we do literacy. — Bill Drayton

I was taught by my parents that people who are loud don't have anything to say. I've found if you're suggesting quite big changes, a quiet style may be reassuring. — Bill Drayton

Better sit still, than rise to meet the devil. — Michael Drayton

We are all very deeply the children of our parents and their parents. Far more than we generally realize. — Bill Drayton

O blessed bounty, giving ail content!
The only fautress of all noble arts
That lend'st success to every good intent.
A grace that rests in the most godlike hearts,
By heav'n to none but happy souls infus'd
Pity it is, that e'er thou wast abus'd. — Michael Drayton

An entrepreneur is someone who brings a pattern change. — Bill Drayton

Kindly remember that the obvious is always overlooked. — Drayton Bird

What does an entrepreneur do? The first thing is they've given themselves permission to see a problem. Most people don't want to see problems ... Once you see a problem and you keep looking at it, you'll find an answer. — Bill Drayton

We would like to have every middle and high school become a place where there will be lots of examples of youth competence and confidence. — Bill Drayton

What is the most powerful lever you can imagine? A big idea, but only if it's in the hands of a truly outstanding entrepreneur. It starts with the person and the idea, and then grows to the institution. All three are intertwined. — Bill Drayton

We need to reverse three centuries of walling the for-profit and non-profit sectors off from one another. When you think for-profit and non-profit, you most often think of entities with either zero social return or zero return on capital and zero social return. Clearly, there's some opportunity in the spectrum between those extremes. What's missing is the for-profit finance industry coming in to that area. Look at the enormous diversity of the for-profit financial industry as opposed to monolithic nature of the non-profit world; it's quite astonishing. — Bill Drayton

People only buy when they're ready to buy. Not when you're ready to sell — Drayton Bird

WhenTime shall turn those amber locks to grey, My verse again shall gild and make them gay. — Michael Drayton

We have to have a revolution so that all young people grasp empathy and practice it. This is the most fundamental revolution that we have to get through. — Bill Drayton