John W. Gardner - People Quotes

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Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.

John W. Gardner
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. This is what enables them to rise above the conflicts that plague any society. That is what gives a nation its tone, its fiber, its integrity, its moral style, its capacity to endure.

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

John W. Gardner
Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

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
The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than live a life of aimless diversion.

John W. Gardner
The future announces itself from afar. But most people are not listening. The noisy clatter of the present drowns out the tentative sound of things to come. The sound of the new does not fit old perceptual patterns and goes unnoticed by most people. And of the few who do perceive something coming, most lack the energy, initiative, courage or will to do anything about it. Leaders who have the wit to perceive and the courage to act will be credited with a gift of prophecy that they do not necessarily have.

John W. Gardner
Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor.

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