John W. Gardner

"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: neith…"

"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."

"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 perce…"

"History never looks like history when you are living through it."

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."

"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."

"History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable."

""One of the reasons why mature people are apt to learn less than young people is that they are willing to risk less. Learning is a risky business, and they do not like failure.""