Explore Quotes by John W. Gardner

Americans have always believed that-within the law-all kinds of people should be allowed to take the initiative in all kinds of activities. And out of that pluralism has come virtually all of our creativity. Freedom is real only to the extent that there are diverse alternatives.

There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.

The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than live a life of aimless diversion.

Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.

More and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.

Some people may have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by “doin' what comes naturally”; and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

We need more than individual value systems; we need a shared vision. A nation is held together by shared values, shared beliefs, shared attitudes. That is what enables a people to maintain a cohesive society despite the tensions of daily life. That is what enables them to rise above the conflicts that plague any society.

When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard.

I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Our problem is not to find better values but to be faithful to those we profess.

The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions.

The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.

One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.