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

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.

Creativity requires the freedom to consider unthinkable alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices.

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. 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.

The play of conflicting interests in a framework of shared purposes is the drama of a free society. It is a robust exercise, and often a noisy one. It is not for the faint-hearted, or the tidy-minded.

Leaders develop their styles as they interact with their constituencies. They move toward the style that seems most effective in dealing with the mixture of elements that make up their constituencies.