The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.

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

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.

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

The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing the gap between what is and what could be.

Mastery is not something that strikes in an instant, like a thunderbolt, but a gathering power that moves steadily through time, like weather.