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 More Quotes by John W. Gardner More Quotes From 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 respect army people Life is an endless process of self-discovery. John W. Gardner self life-is discovery 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 style leader moving One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure. John W. Gardner failure learning reading 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 greatness freedom commitment At home we have lost the capacity to see what is before us. Travel shakes us out of our apathy, and we regain an attentiveness that heightens every experience. The exhilaration of travel has many sources, but surely one of them is that we recapture in some measure the unspoiled awareness of children. John W. Gardner apathy home children One man interacting creatively with others can move the world. John W. Gardner men world moving 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 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 For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred. John W. Gardner poverty talent politics The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing the gap between what is and what could be. John W. Gardner gaps individual creative To sensible men, every day is a day of reckoning. John W. Gardner wise-words karma men All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species. John W. Gardner species law natural 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 years school The individual who has become a stranger to himself has lost the capacity for genuine self-renewal. John W. Gardner individual stranger self It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government. John W. Gardner hardship government teamwork When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard. John W. Gardner judgement keys two 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 being-yourself clever running We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. John W. Gardner heavy failure pay Creativity requires the freedom to consider 'unthinkable' alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved. John W. Gardner creativity practice art
