Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.
John W. GardnerRead
The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing the gap between what is and what could be.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creative individuals have a unique ability to envision possibilities beyond the current reality.
In this quote, John W. Gardner emphasizes the gift of creativity, suggesting that creative individuals possess a remarkable insight that allows them to recognize the potential for improvement and innovation. They can see beyond the status quo, imagining new possibilities and solutions that may not yet exist, which is essential for progress and development in various aspects of life and society.
Themes
CreativityImaginationPotentialVisionInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the importance of creativity in business.
More from John W. Gardner
All quotes βMore 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.
John W. GardnerRead
Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.
John W. GardnerRead
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.
John W. GardnerRead
We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. 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.
John W. GardnerRead
I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.
John W. GardnerRead
Similar quotes
It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
Neil PeartRead
We are all creative, but by the time we are three of four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else.
Maya AngelouRead
It's hard to be fully creative without structure and constraint. Try to paint without a canvas. Creativity and freedom are two sides of the same coin. I like the best of both worlds. Want freedom? Get organized. Want to get organized? Get creative.
David AllenRead
Creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence - then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity.
RajneeshRead
As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood.
Jim HensonRead
That combination of thought and action defines creative confidence: the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.
Tom KelleyRead