John Kay

Most people have little time or energy to devote to politics, which enables small groups with a strong commercial, personal or ideological motivation to exert disproportionate influence.

Why do we devote more resources to training carrier pigeons and building fibreoptic links than to understanding military and business strategy?

Some complexity is unavoidable, but much of the complexity consumers experience is not.

What is important in billiards is the result, not the play: and what matters in business and finance is the outcome, not the process. In business and finance, as in billiards, the imperfections are critical and you can anticipate the result, or understand the outcome, only by appreciating these imperfections.

The most effective control is other parties’ diligence in assessing the businesses with which they deal.

If you aim to create a dynamic, successful business, a state-owned utility is not the place to start.

The benefit of road improvements is principally the reduced time and strain on private motorists, not the economic advantages to road transport operators: that lesson should influence the way we plan our road networks. Fast roads for light traffic are much cheaper to build than superhighways.

Great and enduringly successful organisations are not stages on which geniuses can strut. They are structures that make the most of the ordinary talents of ordinary people.

The decline of GM is as instructive as its rise. The challenge of how to reconcile professional management with a culture of innovation remains for ever a central issue for management thinkers.

Dominance of an industry or activity is not the same as scale. International trade is conducted by individuals and businesses, not governments, and it is them, who negotiate the division of the value added trade creates.