Some people may have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by “doin' what comes naturally”; and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

John W. Gardner

Categorized in : People Greatness Discipline

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

John W. Gardner

uplifting success inspirational

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

anger rain philosophy

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.

John W. Gardner

wisdom life art

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. Gardner

powerful courage fear

Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clean air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.

John W. Gardner

cutting mean school

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

John W. Gardner

using-your-talents happiness inspirational

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

flower teaching education

Perhaps the most promising trend in our thinking about leadership is the growing conviction that the purposes of the group are best served when the leader helps followers develop their own initiative, strengthens them in the use of their own judgment, enables them to grow, and to become better contributors.

John W. Gardner

groups leader thinking

The play of conflicting interests in a framework of shared purposes is the drama of a free society. It is a robust exercise, and often a noisy one. It is not for the faint-hearted, or the tidy-minded.

John W. Gardner

play exercise drama

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

John W. Gardner

ignorance simple two

All of us celebrate our values in our behavior.

John W. Gardner

celebration celebrate behavior

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

John W. Gardner

society relationship people

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

John W. Gardner

inspirational history looks

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

John W. Gardner

creativity freedom practice

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

John W. Gardner

leadership education sports

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

community responsibility character

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

John W. Gardner

excellence sea islands

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

humorous reading latin

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

John W. Gardner

cynic business men

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

John W. Gardner

stars excellence perfection