John W. Gardner – 17 Quotes

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17 Quotes by John W. Gardner

 

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

– John W. Gardner


Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.

– John W. Gardner


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


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


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.

– John W. Gardner


The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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


The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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

– John W. Gardner


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


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

– John W. Gardner


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