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Progress Quotes

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Progress Quotes

“The history of science shows that the progress of science has constantly been hampered by the tyrannical influence of certain conceptions that finally came to be considered as dogma. For this reason, it is proper to submit periodically to a very searching examination, principles that we have come to assume without any more discussion.”

Reason Shows Certain Principles Progress Influence Assuming Discussion Conception Submit Dogma Examination History Of Science

Author:Louis de Broglie

“We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers-that is to say, as markets.”

Source: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

“No great, inspiring culture of the future can be built upon the moral principle of relativism. For at its bottom such a culture holds that nothing is better than anything else, and that all things are in themselves equally meaningless. Except for the fragments of faith (in progress, in compassion, in conscience, in hope) to which it still clings, illegitimately, such a culture teaches every one of its children that life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”

Children Stills Life Is Culture Compassion Moral Principles Teach Progress Conscience Built All Things Bottom Tales Idiot Meaningless Fragments Relativism Moral Principles Signifying

Author:Michael Novak

“A truly wise person will constantly move forward, striving for self-improvement, knowing that daily repentance is needed for progress. He will realize the good life is simply conforming to a standard of right and justice. The joys of happiness can only be realized by living lofty principles.”

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.”

Source: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848

“Americans have always pursued our dreams within a free market that has been the engine of our progress. It's a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and rewarded the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon of science, and technology, and discovery. But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided the market's invisible hand with a higher principle - that America prospers when all Americans can prosper. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest.”

“Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the 'greatest good for the greatest number' can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual.”

Suffering Individual Numbers Principles Progress Tests Impact Excuse Indifference Enlightened

Book:In Place of Fear

Source: In Place of Fear

“Then let every one of us, being warned by this sentence of the angel, acknowledge that he as yet cleaves to first principles, or, at least, does not comprehend all those things which are necessary to be known; and that therefore progress is to be made to the very end of life: for this is our wisdom, to be learners to the end.”

Firsts Doe Made Ends Known Principles Progress Angel Sentences Acknowledge End Of Life Learners

Book:John Calvin's Commentaries On Zechariah And Malachi (Annotated Edition)

Source: John Calvin's Commentaries On Zechariah And Malachi (Annotated Edition)

“So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained our forward progress, and we have made our labor movement something to be respected and accorded a place in the councils of the Republic. Where we have blundered into trying to force a policy or decision, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.”

Source: The American Federationist

“It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles , deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory.”

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers by William John Macquorn Rankine

“Darwinism undermined traditional morality and the value of human life. Then, evolutionary progress became the new moral imperative. This aided the advance of eugenics, which was overtly founded on Darwinian principles. Some eugenicists began advocating euthanasia and infanticide for the disabled. On a parallel track, some prominent Darwinists argued that human racial competition and war is part of the Darwinian struggle for existence. Hitler imbibed these social Darwinist ideas, blended in virulent anti-Semitism, and--there you have it: Holocaust”

“Natural selection is just three factors - over-production, variation, and inheritance combined to produce adaptation to changing local environments. It's not a principle or progress; it's just a principle of local adaptation. You don't make better creatures in any cosmic sense; you make creatures that are better suited to the changing climates of their local habitats.”

Three Natural Principles Environment Progress Produce Creatures Climate Productions Locals Factors Cosmic Selection Adaptation Inheritance Variation Natural Selection Habitat

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. Yet people sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this the progress principle: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.”

“And so matching by itself is incapable of creating an art of reckoning. Without our ability to arrange things in ordered succession little progress could have been made. Correspondence and succession, the two principles that permeate all mathematics - nay, all realms of exact thought - are woven into the very fabric of our number system.”

Source: Number, the Language of Science: A Critical Survey Written for the Cultured Non-mathematician

“Does anyone believe for one moment that the progress we have made would have been possible under bureaucratic control of any government. This country was founded upon the principle of the regulation of private effort, of making rules for the game, and under that system alone can we look for the same success in the future which has been ours in the past. Our position today is the direct result of the free play among our people of private competitive effort.”

People Believe Looks Doe Has Beens Made Country Play Moments Government Today Past Games Results Effort Principles Progress Position Direct Competition Regulation Free Play

Author:Roger Babson

“We do not know how to formulate string theory nor do we know its underlying principles. Surprisingly, this fact does not stop us from making progress.”

Knows Doe Facts Science Principles Know How Progress Theory Mathematics Strings String Theory

Author:Nathan Seiberg

“Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God Himself; and the development of law is only then a progress when it is directed towards those principles which like Him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice.”

Law Justice Principles Progress Development Succeed Eternal Prejudice Errors Contrary Doctrine Immortal

Book:Select speeches, condensed and abridged by F.W. Newman

Source: Select speeches, condensed and abridged by F.W. Newman

“I believe there are an infinite number of laws of the universe and that all progress or dreams achieved come from operating in a way that's consistent with them. These laws and the principles of how to operate in harmony with them have always existed. We were given these laws by nature. Man didn't and can't make them up. He can only hope to understand them and use them to get what he wants.”

Men Way Want Life Believe Use Dream Law Universe Given I Believe Growth Numbers Principles Progress Harmony Infinite Personal Growth Investing Consistent

Author:Ray Dalio

“Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.”

“I come out of the environment of the Deep South, where I had seen the millstone of racial discrimination weighting down my people, both the black people and the white people; and I had seen the enormous progress that we were able to make after we removed the legal restraints of a two-class society, with the whites superior and blacks inferior. So I was very convinced before I became President that basic human rights, equality of opportunity, the end of abuse by governments of their people, was a basic principle on which the United States should be an acknowledged champion.”

“The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time.”

Persons Made Steps Principles Progress Achieve Determined Maximum One Step At A Time Small Stuff

Book:The Magic Of Thinking Big

Source: The Magic Of Thinking Big

“We can call this "the progress principle": Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them. Shakespeare captured it perfectly: "Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."”

Soul Done Joy Lying Goal Pleasure Principles Progress Achieve Captured

Book:The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

Source: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

“Principle #6: Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress.”

Principles Progress Innovation Recognition Reform Identical Torches Devouring

Author:Russell Kirk

“Teachings and ideologies subversive to the fundamental principles of this great Republic, which are contrary to the Constitution of the United States, or which are detrimental to the progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be condemned, whether advocated by Republicans or Democrats.”

“Progress was a labyrinth ... people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it ... the invisible king-the élan vital-the principle of evolution ... writing a book, starting a war, founding a school.”

People Writing Book War School Found Principles Progress Evolution Kings Starting Invisible Founding Writing A Book Shouting Rushing Labyrinth

Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“We can not imitate great souls. However to study, analyse and imbibe the principles they teach and embody, is the path of progress.”

Soul Principles Teach Study Path Progress Can Not Great Souls

Author:Radhanath Swami

“We always come back to the same misunderstanding. The Jews because of their spirit of revolt, their exclusiveness and the Messianic tendencies which animate them are in essence revolutionaries, but they do not realize it and believe that they are working for 'progress.'...but that which they call justice is the triumph of Jewish principles in the world of which the two extremes are plutocracy and socialism. Present day Anti-Semitism is a revolt against the world of today, the product of Judaism.”

“I think that our politics everywhere are gonna be going through this bumpy phase. But as long as we stay true to our Democratic principles, as long as elections have integrity, as long as we respect freedom of speech, freedom of religion, as long as there are checks and balances in our governments so that the people have the ability to not just make judgments about how well government is serving them but also change governments if they're not serving them well, then I have confidence that over the long term, progress will continue.”

“Western progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don't-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I'm fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled.”

Ifs Feels Doe Two Hands Seems Principles Progress Feet Buddhism Ideals Western Contradiction Village Caves Opposing

Author:Quentin S. Crisp

“If you have methods without principles, you're going to have trouble. But if you develop methods based on principles, then you can make progress.”

Ifs Principles Progress Trouble Method

Author:Charles Koch

“It is true that the principle of national citizenship, associated with rights, and the control of a country's borders are two key aspects of modern 'sovereign' nation states as they emerged in the Westphalian order. But there has been much progress since 1648.”

Has Beens Two Country States Order Nations Principles Rights Progress Modern Keys Aspect Borders Sovereign Citizenship

Author:Kofi Annan

“Conservatism vests in and depends on the widespread, informed understanding of human nature, self-governance and the First Principle of Progress: free people interacting in free markets produce the greatest good for the greatest number always, but only, when tethered to virtue and morality.”

People Firsts Humans Self Understanding Numbers Principles Virtue Progress Human Nature Produce Depends Morality Free Market Governance Conservatism Interacting Vests

Author:Mary Matalin

“These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness.”

Humans Wealth Race Silence Compassion Principles Progress Awareness Worship Human Race Fearlessness Spiritual Awareness

Author:Anthony de Mello