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All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

John W. Gardner

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John W. Gardner
Age: 89 †
Born: 1912
Born: October 8
Died: 2002
Died: February 16
Author
Politician
LA
California
John William Gardner
John Gardner
Excellence
Discipline
Purpose
Tenacity
Involves

More quotes by John W. Gardner

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The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions.
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If the modern leader doesn't know the facts, he is in grave trouble, but rarely do the facts provide unqualified guidance.
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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
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The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.
John W. Gardner
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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
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The [nonprofit] sector is the natural home of nonmajoritarian impulses, movements and values. It comfortably harbors innovators, maverick movements, groups which feel they must fight for their place in the sun, and critics of both liberal conservative persuasion.
John W. Gardner
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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
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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
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Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
John W. Gardner
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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
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The ablest and most effective leaders do not hold to a single style they may be highly supportive in personal relations when that is needed, yet capable of a quick, authoritative decision when the situation requires it.
John W. Gardner
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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
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One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.
John W. Gardner
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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
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Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.
John W. Gardner
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Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.
John W. Gardner
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Nothing can be more readily disproved than the old saw, You can't keep a good man down. Most human societies have been beautifully organized to keep good men down.
John W. Gardner
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It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six.
John W. Gardner
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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
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Creativity requires the freedom to consider unthinkable alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices.
John W. Gardner