John W. Gardner Quotes

"It's a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs."
-John W. Gardner

"Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach."
-John W. Gardner

"The judges did a pretty good job of finding the weak points of both sides' arguments. I was a little surprised at how tough the panel was on the government."
-John W. Gardner

"If you don't give your kid freedom to make choices with money, including stupid choices, he'll make plenty when he gets to college."
-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 in Education quotes.

"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

"History never looks like history when you are living through it."
-John W. Gardner in History quotes.

"As the market has risen, a lot of people are probably over-invested in stocks. You can sell some stocks and buy bonds, mutual funds or CDs that are less risky."
-John W. Gardner

"When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light."
-John W. Gardner in Creativity quotes.

"One of the reasons mature people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure."
-John W. Gardner in Learning quotes.

"He has had phenomenal impact on amateur hockey."
-John W. Gardner

"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 in Politics quotes.

"A lot of our clients are older and have been trading up in homes, but as their kids move out they're reluctant to 'buy down' because of capital gains. This [provision] is getting a lot of interest."
-John W. Gardner

"Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality."
-John W. Gardner in Pity quotes.

"Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well."
-John W. Gardner in Excellence quotes.

"I didn't believe it at first. The league shouldn't have to have a rule for something like this. It is called ethics and integrity."
-John W. Gardner

"We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
-John W. Gardner

"This is a facility run by skilled people and you won't get that expertise anywhere else."
-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