A Quote by John W. Gardner

Creativity requires the freedom to consider 'unthinkable' alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved.

John W. Gardner

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Alternatives Assumptions Cherished Consider Creativity Doubt Every Familiar Freedom Involved Least Most Never Organization Practices Questioned Requires Society Spell Those Unthinkable Worth

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John W. Gardner
American - Educator
October 8, 1912 - February 16, 2002

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

John W. Gardner

The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable.

Paul Broca

To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.

Jacob Bronowski

I was in the CIA for nine years. I am intimately familiar with the information classification system. I used it every day on the job. Like every other one of my colleagues at the agency, I approached the handling of classified information with immense care because I understand the ramifications.

Will Hurd

Of course, it is worth it to take the time to think carefully through your assumptions, and ensure you at least have hypotheses around how you will create value. But use the analysis as a way to focus attention on the most critical assumptions, rather than spend a ton of time massaging the numbers.

Scott D. Anthony

A critique does not consist in saying that things aren't good the way they are. It consists in seeing on just what type of assumptions, of familiar notions, of established and unexamined ways of thinking the accepted practices are based... To do criticism is to make harder those acts which are now too easy.

Michel Foucault

The man who acquires an encyclopedia does not thereby acquire every line, every paragraph, every page, and every illustration; he acquires the possibility of becoming familiar with one and another of those things.

Jorge Luis Borges

Doubt is a powerful tool. Doubt challenges my beliefs and breaks the spell of all the lies and superstitions that control my world. I use doubt to recover faith in myself, to take my power back from every superstition I believe in, and return that power to myself.

Miguel Angel Ruiz

What I mean is, if you look at the behavior of an animal and ask, "Well, why did it do that?" and then consider the alternatives, those alternatives probably wouldn't be as successful at getting its genes around.

Hal Whitehead

Innovation is a subset of creativity. Innovation often deals with product launches and is often relegated to the C-suite or to heads of R&D departments. Innovation requires creativity, but creativity is something that is much more broad. It applies to people at all levels of an organization. Today, we all are responsible for delivering "everyday creativity". Small creative acts that add up to big things.

Josh Linkner

As to freedom, it is cherished, it is hard to come by, it is hard to hang on to. But freedom without responsibility is chaos, so to those who push the idea that freedom would allow an individual to do anything, anywhere, at any time, I reject, your freedom ends where my ability to raise my family safely begins. So I would urge every American to vaccinate their children and I would reject any effort to stop vaccinations until someone can show me a scientific reason to do so.

Lindsey Graham

everything is too important ever to be entrusted to professional experts, because every organization of such professionals and every established social organization becomes a vested-interest institution more concerned with its efforts to maintain itself or advance its own interests than to achieve the purpose that society expects it to achieve.

Carroll Quigley

Kobe is worth every penny, and I'd never had any doubt that he'd contribute to this team.

Jeanie Buss

In every part of our society, rules have to be questioned and adapted.

Philipp Lahm

If Israel falls to the terrorists, the entire free world will tremble. To forsake Israel now would be tantamount to forsaking Great Britain in 1940. It is unthinkable, and it is unthinkable because the world wants to know if we believe freedom is worth fighting for.

Tom DeLay

Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.

Stephen King

A Quote by John W. Gardner

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