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Progress quotes

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“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” - 1952

“And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

“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” - 6 February 1985

“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.” Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance” - 1893

“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” - 1849

“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” - 16 April 1963

“The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” - 1841

“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” - 1895

“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” - 1748

“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” - 1943

“Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best.” Voltaire, “Candide” - 1759

“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” - 1964

“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” - 1887

“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” - 1887

“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” - 1887

“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” - 14 January 1963

“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” - 1962

“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” - 1891

Related topics

civilization society learning science men knowledge justice reading invention virtue world freedom pain spirit order constraint wrong improvement law democracy

Related authors

Thomas Henry Huxley (3)
Oscar Wilde (2)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
H. G. Wells (1)
David Hume (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1)
Ronald Reagan (1)
Voltaire (1)
Mao Zedong (1)
John F. Kennedy (1)
Milton Friedman (1)

Related sources

The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (3)
State of the Union Address (2)
Civil Disobedience (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1)
Self-Reliance (1)
The Time Machine (1)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1)
The Fountainhead (1)
Tarzan of the Apes (1)
Candide (1)
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1)
Capitalism and Freedom (1)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (1)
A Woman of No Importance (1)