John W. Gardner Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Freedom, Commitment, Greatness

  14 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Leadership, Tasks, Alive

  6 Copy quote

• One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good, nobody can touch Him.

  John W. Gardner

  Latin, Humorous, Reading

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Men, Bored, Care

  "Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society". Book by John W. Gardner, 1964.

  4 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Business, Men, Cynic

  26 Copy quote

• We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure.

  John W. Gardner

  Failure, Pay, Heavy

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Nature, Technology, Men

  "No Easy Victories". Book by John William Gardner, ed. Helen Rowan, Harper & Row, p. 57, 1968.

  4 Copy quote

• The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.

  John W. Gardner

  Creativity, Imagination, Creative

  9 Copy quote

• 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. Gardner

  Change, Moving, Past

  9 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Leadership, Sports, Education

  63 Copy quote

• One exemplary act may affect one life, or even millions of lives. All those who set standards for themselves, who strengthen the bonds of community, who do their work creditably and accept individual responsibility, are building the common future.

  John W. Gardner

  Character, Responsibility, Community

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Integrity, Men, People

  Dr. John W. Gardner (2015). “Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?”, p.164, Pickle Partners Publishing

  62 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Education, School, Years

  9 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Faithful, Problem, Being Faithful

  John W. Gardner (1971). “The Recovery of Confidence”

  13 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Karma, Men, Wise Words

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Attitude, Integrity, People

  "The Recovery of Confidence".

  8 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Community, Finals, Garbage

  1969 In the NewYork Times, 9 Oct.

  7 Copy quote

• Josh Billings said, It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too. Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems.

  John W. Gardner

  Running, Being Yourself, Clever

  9 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Teamwork, Government, Hardship

  John W. Gardner (1971). “The Recovery of Confidence”

  7 Copy quote

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

  John W. Gardner

  Respect, Army, People

  24 Copy quote

• 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. Gardner

  Leadership, Style, Quality

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  John W. Gardner

  Believe, Thinking, Law

  6 Copy quote

• All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

  John W. Gardner

  Discipline, Excellence, Purpose

  Dr. John W. Gardner (2015). “Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?”, p.103, Pickle Partners Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Leaders develop their styles as they interact with their constituencies. They move toward the style that seems most effective in dealing with the mixture of elements that make up their constituencies.

  John W. Gardner

  Moving, Leader, Style

  10 Copy quote

• One man interacting creatively with others can move the world.

  John W. Gardner

  Moving, Men, World

  5 Copy quote

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