Quotes by John Gardner

John Gardner

…ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don’t, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you’re not going to be read in twenty years, and that’s that.

Dream

Winning

Years

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is 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.

Humble

Philosophy

Water

As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn’t do it, don’t.

Ifs

Jesus

Thumbs

Find a pile of gold and sit on it.

Gold

I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing!

Believe

Energy

Grief

I couldn’t go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words–changing nothing.

Goes On

Whispering

World

I know everything, you see,’ the old voice wheedled. ‘The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than memory and perception. But dragons, my boy, have a whole different kind of mind.’ He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. ‘We are from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout.

Boys

Memories

Past

i understand that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. i understood that, finally and absolutely, i alone exist. all the rest, i saw, is merely what pushes me, or what i push against, blindly – as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. i create the whole universe, blink by blink.

Enmity

Saws

World

In university courses we do exercises. Term papers, quizzes, final examinations are not meant for publication. We move through a course on Dostoevsky or Poe as we move through a mildly good cocktail party, picking up the good bits of food or conversation, bearing with the rest, going home when it comes to seem the reasonable thing to do. Art, at those moments when it feels most like art — when we feel most alive, most alert, most triumphant — is less like a cocktail party than a tank full of sharks.

Art

Home

Moving

It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.

Fall

Long

Order

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Accidents

Art

Believe

Boys

Challenges

Community

Crazy

Democracy

Dream

Energy

Enmity

Fall

Giving

Goes On

Gold

Grief

Grows

Helping

Home

Humble

Identity

Ifs

Interesting

Jesus

Levels

Littles

Long

May

Memories

Might

Moving

Order

Past

Patriotic

People

Philosophy

Political

Poor

Pursue

Reality

Saws

Sea

Self

Spinning Around

Stories

Strong

Teeth

Thumbs

Wall

Water

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by John Gardner

John Gardner

…ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don’t, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you’re not going to be read in twenty years, and that’s that.

As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn’t do it, don’t.

Find a pile of gold and sit on it.

I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing!

I couldn’t go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words–changing nothing.

It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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