The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.

Some people may have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by doin' what comes naturally; and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

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.

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.

We cannot have islands of excellence in a sea of slovenly indifference to standards.

Self-discipline is the free man's yoke.

Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.

Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.

Nothing can be more readily disproved than the old saw, You can't keep a good man down. Most human societies have been beautifully organized to keep good men down.

To sensible men, every day is a day of reckoning.

In the artist's recreation of the world we are enabled to see the world.

I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.

The first and last task of a leader is to keep hope alive.

One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good, nobody can touch Him.

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.

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.

We need more than individual value systems; we need a shared vision. A nation is held together by shared values, shared beliefs, shared attitudes. That is what enables a people to maintain a cohesive society despite the tensions of daily life. That is what enables them to rise above the conflicts that plague any society.

In the United States, to an unprecedented degree, the individual's social role has come to be determined not by who he is but by what he can accomplish.

Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

One man interacting creatively with others can move the world.