While everything in life adds to, or detracts from, human success or failure, nothing is more important in life than people. It is the people who create a respectful, optimistic, trusting and intentional society.

The English wording was checked directly in the 1991 ERIC paper. A Portuguese quotation on Pensador credits the journal’s first volume, but that journal edition was not read and is not the basis for this source or date.

Purkey turns from the theory to five practical areas in a school: people, places, policies, programs and processes. People come first; the subsequent subsections explain how the other four areas can help or hinder them.

Human relationships matter more than institutional arrangements alone. A respectful and encouraging society must be made by the people in it.

Society, Wisdom

• People possess untapped potential in all areas of human endeavor. The uniqueness of human beings is that no clear limits to potential have been discovered.
• No one can choose a beneficial direction in life without hope that change for the better is possible.
• A student is the most important person ever in this school.
• Human potential, though not always apparent, is there waiting to be discovered and invited forth. (paraphrase)
• To teach is to influence, and influence never dies. Elbert Hubbard

• pensador.com/autor/william_w_purkey

William W. Purkey, William Watson Purkey, What Is Invitational Education and How Does It Work?, conference paper; ERIC ED334488, printed p. 7 (PDF page 8), People subsection. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/nothing-is-more-important-in-life-than-people/ (25 October 2026).

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