John W. Gardner Quotes

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  • Author
  • 1912 - 2002
  • 89 quotes

John W. Gardner, an author (1912 - 2002), is quoted 89 times on QuoteForever. The subjects that come up most often are Excellence, Men, Leadership and People.

Quotes with a ready-made image come first, then the rest in order of how often they are read and shared. Open any quote to copy it, share it, or turn it into a picture quote.

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. - John W. Gardner

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure.

Life is an endless process of self-discovery.

All of us celebrate our values in our behavior.

To sensible men, every day is a day of reckoning.

The world loves talent but pays off on character.

A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

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

All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

One man interacting creatively with others can move the world.

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

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

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

In the artist's recreation of the world we are enabled to see the world.

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

Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are.

Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

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

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.

The man who once cursed his fate, now curses himself - and pays his psychoanalyst.

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

The cynic says, "One man can't do anything". I say, "Only one man can do anything."

Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.

The cynic says, 'One man can't do anything.' I say, 'Only one man can do anything.'

We cannot have islands of excellence in a sea of slovenly indifference to standards.

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

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

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

The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing the gap between what is and what could be.

The individual who has become a stranger to himself has lost the capacity for genuine self-renewal.

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities - brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six.

It is one of the ironies of history that reformers so often misjudge the consequences of their reforms.

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.

Creativity requires the freedom to consider unthinkable alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices.

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

It's a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs.

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

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

We have to face the fact that most men and women out there are more stale than they know, more bored than they care to admit.

Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the [nonprofit] sector is its relative freedom from constraints and its resulting pluralism.

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.

Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

We get richer and richer in filthier and filthier communities until we reach a final state of affluent misery - crocus on a garbage heap.

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

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.

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