55 Inspired Peter Drucker Quotes (Thought Leader)
Welcome to our collection of 55 (with video) Peter Drucker Quotes!
- Top 10 Peter Drucker Quotes
- Drucker on Leadership and Management
- More Great Peter Drucker Quotes
- Peter Drucker Biography
Top 10 Peter Drucker Quotes

Drucker on Leadership and Management
More Great Peter Drucker Quotes
product or service fits him and sells itself. Peter F. Drucker Quotes
Peter Drucker Biography
Peter F. Drucker, whose full name was Peter Ferdinand Drucker, was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author. He was born on November 19, 1909 in Vienna, Austria, and passed away on November 11, 2005 in Claremont, California, United States. Drucker’s writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a pioneer in the establishment of management education, and he pioneered the notion of management by objectives.
His family lived in the little community of Kaasgraben, the son of Jewish intellectuals—his mother, Caroline Bondi, had studied medicine and his father, Adolph Bertram Drucker, was a lawyer (now part of Vienna). He grew raised in a house where intellectuals, high-ranking government officials, and scientists, particularly those from the Vienna Circle, would gather to explore new ideas and ideals.
After graduating from Döbling Gymnasium, Drucker found few job options in post-Habsburg Vienna, so he relocated to Hamburg, Germany. He began his career as an apprentice at a well-established cotton trading company, then as a journalist for the Austriaische Volkswirt (The Austrian Economist). While in Hamburg, he spent a lot of time reading novels and history, and he discovered the philosophical writings of Soren Kirkegaard, which had a big influence on him.
Then he landed a position in Frankfurt, writing for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. While he was living in Frankfurt, he attended the University of Frankfurt and received a Ph.D. in international law and public law in the year 1931. Both of Drucker’s early works, “The Jewish Question in Germany” (1932) and an article on the conservative German philosopher Friedrich Julius Stahl (1932), which he penned while he was still a young writer, were torched and outlawed by the Nazi regime. Drucker fled Germany for England in 1933, the same year that Adolf Hitler assumed power there. After working for an insurance business in London for a while, he went on to become the top economist of a private bank there. In addition to that, he got back in touch with his old friend Doris Schmitz, who went to the University of Frankfurt. In 1934, the couple was married.
The pair moved to the United States permanently, where Drucker worked as a correspondent for many British newspapers, notably the Financial Times. He was also a regular contributor to Harper’s Magazine and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He also taught economics at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, on a part-time basis. In 1939, he released The End of Economic Man, which launched his career as a freelance writer and business adviser.
Drucker became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943. From 1942 to 1949, he was a professor of philosophy and politics at Bennington College, and from 1950 to 1971, he was a professor of management at New York University.
After relocating to California in 1971, Drucker established at Claremont Graduate University one of the country’s first executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs for working professionals.
His writings have been translated into over 30 different languages. He has written two novels, one autobiography, and a book on Japanese painting. He also produced eight instructive films on management themes. For 20 years, he wrote a regular column in the Wall Street Journal and frequently contributed to the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Economist. He also worked as a consultant to businesses and non-profit groups far into his nineties.
Must Read

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter Drucker
Further Reading
- The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker
- Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker
- The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker