This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.
Civilization | Incoherent | Progress |
I will... venture to assume that as the human race is continually advancing in civilization and culture as its natural purpose, so it is continually making progress for the better in relation to the moral end of its existence, and that this progress although it maybe sometimes interrupted, will never be entirely broken off or stopped.
Better | Civilization | Culture | Existence | Human race | Progress | Purpose | Purpose | Race | Will |
All the grand agencies which the progress of mankind evolves are the aggregate result of countless wills, each of which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps fully gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in the secret service of the world.
Mankind | Progress | Providence | Service | Thinking | Time | Wills | World |
The first party of painted savages who raised a few huts upon the Thames did not dream of the London they were creating, or know that in the lighting the fire on their hearth they were kindling one of the great foci of Time... All the grand agencies which the progress of mankind evolves are formed in the same unconscious way. They are the aggregate results of countless single wills, each of which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps fully gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in the secret service of the world.
Mankind | Progress | Providence | Service | Thinking | Time | Wills | World |
`Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
Change | Controversy | Progress |
Great completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.
A people in a state of savage independence, in which every one lives for himself, exempt, unless by fits, from any external control, is practically incapable of making any progress in civilization until it has learnt to obey. The indispensable virtue, therefore, in a government which establishes itself over a people of this sort is, that it make itself obeyed.
Civilization | Control | Government | Indispensable | People | Progress | Virtue | Virtue | Government |
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities - perhaps the only one - in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.
Dreams | Error | History | Ideas | Progress | Science | Time | Learn |
Progress is slow, retrogression is swift... Progress is the fruit of devotion.
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
Disobedience | History | Man | Progress | Rebellion | Virtue | Virtue |
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
Discontent | Man | Progress |
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.
Better | Humanity | Looks | Progress | Utopia | World | Worth |
The belief in immortality depends finally upon the belief in God. If there exists a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of mankind toward perfection; and if there be no progress of men towards perfection, then there cannot be a good and wise God. We cannot suppose that God’s moral government, the beginnings of which we see in the world and in ourselves, will cease when we leave this life.
Belief | God | Good | Government | Immortality | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Perfection | Progress | Will | Wise | World |
R. G. Collingwood, fully Robert George Collingwood
In the later nineteenth century the idea of progress became almost an article of faith. This conception was a piece of sheer metaphysics derived from evolutionary naturalism and foisted upon history by the temper of the age.
Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli NULL
When a nation makes progress in science, technology, economic life, and the prosperity of its citizens, a great contribution is made to civilization. But all should realize that these things are not the highest good, but only instruments for pursuing such goods.
Civilization | Good | Life | Life | Progress | Prosperity | Science | Technology |