John W. Gardner Quotes

American - Educator | October 8, 1912 - February 16, 2002

Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.

John W. Gardner

StrengthCourageFindQuietJudgment

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

EducationTodayFlowersPlantsGrow

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

IntegrityLiveCommunityMenPeople

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

SimpleWorldPoliticalBackTwo

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

John W. Gardner

ExcellenceGreatnessPeopleSomeFew

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.

John W. Gardner

EducationSchoolBuildingsGoalWill

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.

John W. Gardner

NaturalLawsSpeciesAttempt

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

John W. Gardner

PeopleSocietyKindSome PeopleJust

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

FreedomCommitmentGreatnessPeople

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

CreativeFreeRestAssumptionsWeb

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

John W. Gardner

PoliticsTalentPovertyEvery

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

John W. Gardner

RespectGovernmentFeelResponsible

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