"An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than……" — John Gardner
"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."
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John Gardner
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42 Quotes by John Gardner
John Gardner has 42 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Art Gropes. It stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure…
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The image-managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market.
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Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.
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They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction. 'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all.
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...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways…
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People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might…
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Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.
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As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writer's ability, on any given day, to write. When the…
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It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the…
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I couldn't go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with…
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Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.
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There is no limit to desire but desire's needs.
See all 42 quotes by John Gardner »
More Activity Quotes
This quote is filed under Activity Quotes,
one of 1,646 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words…
— Margaret Atwood
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If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always…
— Roger Bannister
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Snowboarding is an activity that is very popular with people who do not feel that regular skiing is lethal enough.
— Dave Barry
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To make an activity joyful, keep adding things until the activity as a whole becomes more appealing than repulsing.
— Martha Beck
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
— Alan Bennett
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The activity of a singer that sings opera is similar to that of an athlete.
— Andrea Bocelli
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The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.
— William J. H. Boetcker
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Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
— Edward de Bono
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Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.
— Jorge Luis Borges
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I'm just trying to spread the word and upturn the myth that actually you should be resting after cancer treatment.…
— Jo Brand
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Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in…
— Jacob Bronowski
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Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls…
— Bill Bryson
See all 1,646 Activity Quotes »