Peter F. Drucker

Born 1909 · Died 2005

From Vienna, Austria · Nationality: United States, Austria · Writes nonfiction

Quotes

“The Nazi agitator whom, many years ago, I heard proclaim to a wildly cheering peasants’ meeting: ‘We don’t want lower bread prices, we don’t want higher bread prices, we don’t want unchanged bread prices—we want National-Socialist bread prices,’ came nearer explaining fascism than anybody I have heard since.”
The End of Economic Man, pp. 13-14
“The better a man is, the more mistakes will he make - for the more new things he will try. I would never promote a man into a top level job who had not made mistakes, and big ones at that. Otherwise he is sure to be mediocre.”
The Practice of Management, p. 147
“Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not an elephant.”
1960s - 1980s
“Ideas are somewhat like babies--they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment.”
1960s - 1980s
“Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.”
MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, p. 88

Books by Peter F. Drucker in the order they were published, from The End of Economic Man (1939) to Managing Oneself (2017).