John W. Gardner

If you don't give your kid freedom to make choices with money, including stupid choices, he'll make plenty when he gets to college.

History never looks like history when you are living through it.

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure.

True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

Creativity requires the freedom to consider 'unthinkable' alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved.

The first and last task of aleader is to keep hope alive.

If the modern leader doesn't know the facts, he is in grave trouble, but rarely do the facts provide unqualified guidance.

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

All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.