John W. Gardner

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

Whoever I am or whatever I am doing some kind of excellence is within my reach.

If you have some respect for people as they are you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.

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.

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.