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progress quotes

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“The great steps in its progress have been made, are made, and will be made, by men who seek knowledge simply because they crave for it.” Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century
“If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it To-morrow.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“For a closed society is not open to ideas of progress—and a police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow.” John F. Kennedy, State of the Union Address
“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.” Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
“Physical science therefore rests on verified or uncontradicted hypotheses; and, such being the case, it is not surprising that a great condition of its progress has been the invention of verifiable hypotheses.” Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century
“Progress is the realisation of Utopias.” Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.” John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
“And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes
“Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!” H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
“The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm.” Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
“What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
“we are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law
“Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best.” Voltaire, Candide
“There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address
“If we walk far enough . . . I am sure we shall sometime come to some place.” L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
“Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has no time to lose.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“which leads and drags on the world, is not locomotives, but ideas. Harness locomotives to ideas,—that is well done; but do not mistake the horse for the rider.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“chance encounters are what keep us going.” Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail
“The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. Columbus did not set out to seek a new route to China in response to a...” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
“Keep walking. If I look back I am lost.” George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
“the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,—that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.” Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
“Two centuries ago England was devastated by the plague; cleanliness and common sense were enough to free us from its ravages. One century since, small-pox was almost as great a scourge; science, though working empirically, and almost in the dark,...” Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century

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improvement development rebellion revolution error science learning society civilization technology chance knowledge virtue freedom politics justice democracy men government reading

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Victor Hugo (4)
Oscar Wilde (3)
Thomas Henry Huxley (3)
Haruki Murakami (2)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
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John F. Kennedy (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Kurt Vonnegut (1)
Ronald Reagan (1)
David Hume (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)
Milton Friedman (1)
Voltaire (1)
Mao Zedong (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)

Related sources

Les Misérables (4)
The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (3)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (2)
State of the Union Address (2)
The Fountainhead (1)
A Woman of No Importance (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
Self-Reliance (1)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
Civil Disobedience (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)
The Time Machine (1)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1)
Capitalism and Freedom (1)
Travels with Charley (1)
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
A Dance with Dragons (1)
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (1)