A Quote by Warren G. Bennis

The American Heritage Dictionary defines crucible as "a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces; a severe test of patience or belief; a vessel for melting material at high temperatures." A crucible was the vessel in which medieval alchemists attempted to turn base metals into gold. That the alchemists inevitably failed in their audacious attempts doesn't denigrate the power of the crucible as a metaphor for the circumstances that cause an individual to be utterly transformed.

Warren G. Bennis

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American Attempted Attempts Audacious Base Belief Cause Circumstances Confluence Crucible Defines Denigrate Dictionary Economic Failed Forces Gold Heritage High Individual Inevitably Intellectual Material Medieval Melting Metals Metaphor Patience Place Political Power Powerful Severe Situation Social Temperatures Test Time Transformed Turn Utterly Vessel Which

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Warren G. Bennis
American - Author
March 8, 1925 - July 31, 2014

The crucible is a dividing line, a turning point, and those who have gone through it feel they are very different from the way they were before. Believing that they have been transformed or have transformed themselves, those who survive the crucible (and many don't) are more confident, more willing to take future risks. That new self-confidence is grounded in the belief that he or she has done something hard and done it well.

Warren G. Bennis

Yale is a crucible in American life for the accommodation of intellectual achievement, of wisdom, of refinement, with the democratic ideals of openness, of social justice and of equal opportunity.

Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming!

Israel Zangwill

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace...military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war not blots out this alternative.

Douglas MacArthur

No virtue can be real that has not been tried. The gold in the crucible alone is perfect; the loadstone tests the steel, and the diamond is tried by the diamond, while metals gleam the brighter in the furnace.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure.

Amy Carmichael

It is a kind and wise arrangement of Providence that weaves our sorrows into the elements of character and that all the disappointments, and conflicts, and afflictions of life may, if rightly used, become the means of improvement, and create in us the sinews of strength.... the dross is left in the crucible, the baser metals are transmuted, and the character is enriched with gold.

William Morley Punshon

Think of a crucible as an occasion for real magic, the creation of something more valuable than an alchemist could possibly imagine. In it, the individual is transformed, changed, created anew. He or she grows in ways that change his or her definition of self.

Warren G. Bennis

Of all the ills that circumstance forces upon man, separation from a beloved object is, perhaps, the most salutary. Separation is the crucible wherein love undergoes the test absolute; in the fire of loss, grief softens to indifference or hardens to enduring need.

Katherine Cecil Thurston

I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do.

John Hawkes

I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do

John Hawkes

Medieval alchemists, despite their lust for gold, considered mercury the most potent and poetic substance in the universe. As a child, I would have agreed with them.

Sam Kean

The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them.

Kathleen Norris

Thou makest the man, O Sorrow!--yes, the whole man,--as the crucible gold.

Alphonse de Lamartine

No, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you - he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman.

Israel Zangwill

You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries.

Israel Zangwill

A Quote by Warren G. Bennis

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