“The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come.” IfsThinkingWritingLongImportantMatterEnoughWaitingLinesChanceNovelProgressTenPaperComputerSentencesTechniqueCoffeeStuckShopsDescriptionHookJamChances AreNotebookCoffee Shop Author:Naomi Novik
“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road - the one less traveled by - offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” LongTwoEndsEarthLastsLyingEasyWomenNatureChanceProgressOffersFairsClimate ChangeFeministSpeedDisasterFamiliarEmpoweringDestinationSmoothTraveledPreservationFrostForksSilent SpringFork In The RoadTwo Roads Author:Rachel Carson
“We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history--even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?” IfsChancePiecesProgressMysteryBoundsPace Book:The Sense of an Ending Source: The Sense of an Ending
“Imitation both unconscious and conscious is par excellence the educational method of the family. It is plain that a considerable part of the adaptation of living beings to their environment, i.e., of beings that are born plastic, is passed on from generation to generation through imitation. Were this not so, much if not all of the road traversed by one generation would have to be travelled by the next generation from the very beginning and without short-cuts. Consequently there would be little chance for the novel adaptation, the propitious individual variation, that constitutes progress.” IfsLittlesWould BeNextIndividualBornChanceNovelEnvironmentCuttingProgressGenerationsConsciousMethodExcellenceEducationalUnconsciousPlasticImitationAdaptationNext GenerationVariationShort Cuts Author:Elsie Clews Parsons
“The man of frank and strong prejudices, far from being a political and social menace and an obstacle in the path of progress, is often a benign character and helpful citizen. The chance is far greater, furthermore, that he will be more creative than the man who can never come to more than a few gingerly held conclusions, or who thinks that all ideas should be received with equal hospitality. There is such a thing as being so broad you are flat.” ThinkingMenShouldIdeasCharacterPoliticalStrongSocialChanceCreativePathGreaterProgressHe ManCitizensEqualPrejudiceObstaclesConclusionHelpfulFlatsBroadsFrankHospitalityChances AreMenaceBenign Author:Richard M. Weaver
“Organization is simply the means by which the acts of ordinary men can be made to add up to extraordinary results. To this idea of progress that does not wait on some lucky break, some chance discovery, or some rare stroke of genius, but instead is achieved through systematic, cumulative effort, the engineer has contributed brilliantly.” MenMeanDoeMadeIdeasWaitingChanceResultsEffortBreakProgressGeniusLuckyOrdinaryDiscoveryOrganizationLuckAddExtraordinaryEngineersStrokesBrillianceSystematicOrdinary ManCumulativeLucky Breaks Author:William Wickenden
“We recognize that our progress as a species does not have to be defined in terms of wealth or material and physical growth any more than our progress as individuals has to be defined in terms of physical growth. Physical growth of the body reaches a limit, but the character and the soul of the individual continues to grow, or at least has a chance to continue, often to our last breath. It is simple minded to define our well being in material terms, when that well-being has an aesthetic dimension, and intellectual dimension, a moral dimension.” WellsDoeSoulCharacterBodyLastsIndividualGrowsGrowthTermWealthChanceSimpleMoralProgressMaterialsLimitsIntellectualBreathsSpeciesEnvironmentalDefinedWell BeingDimensionsAestheticSustainability Author:Wes Jackson
“Sorry Day falls on the eve of Reconciliation Week, giving us the chance to ask whether we are making progress in the wider challenge of reconciling Indigenous and other Australians.” GivingFallAsksChallengesChanceProgressWeekSorryIndigenousReconciliation Author:Malcolm Fraser