An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving.
 George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903). copy citation

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Author George Bernard Shaw
Source Man and Superman
Topic progress world
Date 1903
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3328/3328-h/3328-h.htm

Context

“But I will now go further, and confess to you that men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell; and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have a thousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, and a thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will no longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation, every swing from hell to heaven an evolution.” source