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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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John W. Gardner
Age: 89 †
Born: 1912
Born: October 8
Died: 2002
Died: February 16
Author
Politician
LA
California
John William Gardner
John Gardner
Finals
Crocus
Misery
Crocuses
Reach
Affluent
Wealth
Heap
State
Richer
Community
Garbage
States
Communities
Final
More quotes by John W. Gardner
Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.
John W. Gardner
Our problem is not to find better values but to be faithful to those we profess.
John W. Gardner
An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.
John W. Gardner
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
True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.
John W. Gardner
A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.
John W. Gardner
All that we know about the interaction between leaders and constituents or followers tells us that communication and influence flow in both directions and in that two-way communication, nonrational, nonverbal, and unconscious elements play their part.
John W. Gardner
Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
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
Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.
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
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
All of us celebrate our values in our behavior.
John W. Gardner
The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.
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
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
What leaders have to remember is that somewhere under the somnolent surface is the creature that builds civilizations, the dreamer of dreams, the risk taker. And remembering that, the leader must reach down to the springs that never dry up, the ever-fresh springs of the human spirit.
John W. Gardner
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
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
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
