Josh Billings said, It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too. Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems.
John W. GardnerIt is one of the ironies of history that reformers so often misjudge the consequences of their reforms.
John W. GardnerThe individual who has become a stranger to himself has lost the capacity for genuine self-renewal.
John W. GardnerSome people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.
John W. GardnerThe 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. GardnerMore and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.
John W. Gardner