Top 100 Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

Featured in: Positive Motivation Quotes, Changing the World Quotes, Engagement Quotes, Caring Quotes, Tuesday Inspirational Quotes

2. “Very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

Featured in: Care Quotes, Engagement Quotes, Collaboration Quotes

3. “Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

Featured in: Relationship Quotes, Human Nature Quotes, Engagement Quotes, Collaboration Quotes, New Relationship Quotes

4. “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

5. “When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

Featured in: Empathy Quotes, Engagement Quotes, Collaboration Quotes

6. “You can’t hate someone whose story you know.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

7. “It’s not differences that divide us. It’s our judgments about each other that do.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

8. “All social change begins with a conversation.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

9. “Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

10. “Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

11. “Ask what’s possible, not what’s wrong. Keep asking.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

12. “Perseverance is a choice. It’s not a simple, one-time choice, it’s a daily one. There’s never a final decision.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

13. “Change always involves a dark night when everything falls apart. Yet if this period of dissolution is used to create new meaning, then chaos ends and new order emerges.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

14. “Aggression only breeds more aggression. It only creates more fear and anger.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

15. “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way...”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

16. “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

17. “One of the easiest human acts is also the most healing. Listening to someone. Simply listening. Not advising or coaching, but silently and fully listening.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

18. “Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

19. “The nature of the global business environment guarantees that no matter how hard we work to create a stable and healthy organisation, our organisation will continue to experience dramatic changes far beyond our control.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

20. “We need to move from the leader as hero, to the leader as host.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

21. “Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

22. “The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn’t know what it will be until it notices what it has become.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

23. “Listening moves us closer, it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation is the root of all suffering.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

24. “Power in organizations is the capacity generated by relationships. It is an energy that comes into existence through relationships.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

25. “And time for reflection with colleagues is for me a lifesaver; it is not just a nice thing to do if you have the time. It is the only way you can survive.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

26. “Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

27. “Thinking is the place where intelligent actions begin. We pause long enough to look more carefully at a situation, to see more of its character, to think about why it’s happening, to notice how it’s affecting us and others.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

28. “Our willingness to acknowledge that we only see half the picture creates the conditions that make us more attractive to others. The more sincerely we acknowledge our need for their different insights and perspectives, the more they will be magnetized to join us.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

29. “To make a system stronger, we need to make stronger relationships.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

30. “Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

31. “Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

32. “Life doesn’t move in straight lines, and neither does a good conversation.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

33. “Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other’s company.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

34. “Aggression only moves in one direction – it creates more aggression.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

35. “In virtually every organization, regardless of mission and function, people are frustrated by problems that seem unsolvable.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

36. “We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

37. “Let’s just keep asking ourselves this question: ‘Is what I’m about to do strengthening the web of connections, or is it weakening it?’”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

38. “Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

39. “The energy now spent on self-protection can be converted into positive energy if we’re willing to encounter reality and see it clearly. Facing reality is an empowering act – it can liberate our mind and heart to discern how best to use our power and influence in service for this time.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

40. “We would do well to ponder the realization that love is the most potent source of power.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

41. “In our daily life, we encounter people we are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying ere is so their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

42. “The two skills of the warrior are compassion and insight. Compassion is easy – it arises spontaneously from an open heart. Insight or discernment requires more skill. We have to choose our battles.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

43. “Self-production: the characteristic of living systems to continuously renew themselves and to regulate this process in such a way that the integrity of their structure is maintained. It is a natural process which supports the quest for structure, process renewal and integrity.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

44. “In Yellowstone National Park, human-imposed stability thwarted for many years the natural process of small fires, which regularly clean out brush and dead trees. The result was a fragile equilibrium completely vulnerable to the cataclysm of fire that destroyed large areas of the park. The attempt to manage for stability and to enforce an unnatural equilibrium always leads to far-reaching destruction. The.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

45. “Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

46. “As we let go of the machine model of work, we begin to step back and see ourselves in new ways, to appreciate wholeness, and to design organizations that honor and make use of the totality of who we are.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

47. “I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

48. “I think we have to notice that the business processes we use right now for thinking and planning and budgeting and strategy are all delivered on very tight agendas.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

49. “I’ve found that I can only change how I act if I stay aware of my beliefs and assumptions. Thoughts always reveal themselves in behavior.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley

50. “A leader these days needs to be a host – one who convenes diversity; who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our mutual intelligence can come forth.”

— Margaret J. Wheatley