Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive. The more prolonged the halt in some unrelieved system of order, the greater the crash of the dead society.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
You can’t sit on the lid of progress. If you do, you will be blown to pieces.
—Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967) American Industrialist
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
—Robert M. Pirsig (b.1928) American Writer, Philosopher, Author
A radical is one of whom people say ‘He goes too far.’ A conservative, on the other hand, is one ‘who doesn’t go far enough.’ Then there is the reactionary, ‘one who doesn’t go at all.’ All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term progressive.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
We trained hard-but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
—Petronius (c.27–66 CE) Roman Courtier, Novelist
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
—Eden Phillpotts (1862–1960) English Author, Poet, Dramatist
Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
The reason why the race of man moves slowly is because it must move all together.
—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902) American Politician, Lawyer
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
Progress in meditation comes swiftly for those who try their hardest.
—Patanjali Indian Hindu Philosopher, Poet, Writer
Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!
—Og Mandino (1923–96) American Self-help Author
I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize… the immense riches accumulated by the human race. By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
If human progress had been merely a matter of leadership we should be in Utopia today.
—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902) American Politician, Lawyer
All progress is experimental.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Biographer, Poet, Essayist, Writer
The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
—Indira Gandhi (1917–84) Indian Head of State
He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
I will go anywhere, provided it is forward.
—David Livingstone (1813–73) Scottish Missionary, Explorer
Opportunity makes a thief.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
All growth that is not toward God, is growing to decay.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
He who stops being better stops being good.
—Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) British Head of State, Military Leader
I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Every step of progress which the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to state.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Lawyer, Orator
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice.
—Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French Catholic Saint
Intercourse is the soul of progress.
—Sir Thomas Buxton, 1st Baronet (1786–1845) English Politician, Social Reformer
The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Biographer, Poet, Essayist, Writer
My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Your progress depends upon your degree of sustained intensity in a given direction.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother.
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American Civil Rights Leader
People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don’t.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am.
—Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967) American Industrialist
There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterward, when you’ve worked on your own corner.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don’t eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Progress is the law of life; man is not a man as yet.
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
The moving van is a symbol of more than our restlessness, it is the most conclusive evidence possible of our progress.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight,
Through present wrong the eternal right;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man…
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
The way to get ahead is to start now. If you start now, you will know a lot next year that you don’t know now and that you would not have known next year if you had waited.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
—Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English Economist, Journalist
Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.
—Jane Addams (1860–1935) American Social Activist, Political Activist, Author, Lecturer
Revolutions never go backwards.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Lawyer, Orator
If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
It takes five years to design a new car in this country. Heck, we won World War II in four years.
—Ross Perot (1930–2019) American Businessman
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
This world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Nothing recedes like progress.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
Life does not stand still. Where there is no progress there is disintegration. Today a thousand doors of enterprise are open to you, inviting you to useful work. To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities. Today is the day in which to attempt and achieve something worth while.
—Grenville Kleiser (1868–1935) Canadian Author
Old Year! upon the Stage of Time You stand to bow your last adieu; A moment, and the prompter’s chime Will ring the curtain down on you.
—Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Scottish Poet, Author
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
—Chinese Proverb
The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
—Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge… and the longest life is too short.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer