This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The tower leans from its foundation, and every new story but hastens the final catastrophe.
The spiritual history of man, as seen by God, is not one of progress but of recover, or redemption.
God | History | Man | Progress | Redemption |
The future arrives of its own accord, progress does not.
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and regression, of evolution and dissolution.
Biology… has thus revealed man’s place in nature. Hs is the highest form of life produced by the evolutionary process on this planet, the latest dominant type, and the only organism capable of further advance or progress. Whether he knows it or not, whether he wishes it or not, he is now the main agency for the further evolution of the earth and its inhabitants. In other words, his destiny is to realize new possibilities for the whole terrestrial sector of the cosmic process, to be the instrument of further evolutionary progress on this planet.
Destiny | Earth | Evolution | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Progress | Wishes | Words |
The law of duty demands moral perfection or holiness. But this is impossible in our present life, therefore it can only be attained by an indefinite progress, and this progress is only possible under the hypothesis of an existence and a personality that re indefinitely prolonged.
Duty | Existence | Hypothesis | Law | Life | Life | Perfection | Personality | Present | Progress |
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Age | Better | Change | Circumstances | Man | Manners | Means | Men | Mind | Progress | Reverence | Sacred | Society | Wisdom | Society | Think | Truths |
Moral thought seems to behave like all other kinds of thought. Progress through the moral levels and stages is characterized by increasing differentiation and increasing integration, and hence is the same kind of progress that scientific theory presents.
Integration | Progress | Thought | Thought |
Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?
Progress |
The wake of Moses, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Lao Tse, of Christ, probably exert a greater influence over humanity today than when these men were pondering over its fate and happiness. No man ever disappears completely if he strives to do good and expects no reward outside of the joy of having contributed to the progress of mankind.
Fate | Good | Humanity | Influence | Joy | Man | Mankind | Men | Progress | Reward | Fate |
In frontless war where there are no clear lines on the map to show victory and defeat, the only true measure of progress must be political and nonquantifiable: the impact on the enemy’s will to continue the fight.
Let each one remember that he will make progress in all spiritual things only insofar as he rids himself of self-love, self-will and self-interest.
We consider progress as legitimate only when it reinforces, rather than undermines, freedom and democracy.
All men cannot be poets or philanthropists; but all men can join in that gigantic and god-like work the progress of creation. Whoever improves their own nature improves the universe of which they are a part.
To indoctrinate the child with the prevailing world-view of the society and class in which he has been born, to enforce conformity in later life by the thunders of the priest and by the sword of the magistrate has been “the wisdom of our ancestor” at every stage in their progress from savagery to civilization.
Civilization | Conformity | Life | Life | Progress | Society | Wisdom | World | Society | Child |
The meaning and purpose of the world remain to a large extent inexplicable. But one thing is clear: the purpose of all events is spiritual. The purpose of existence is that we human beings, all nations and the whole of humanity, should constantly progress toward perfection. If we do this, our finite spirit will be in harmony with the infinite.
Events | Existence | Harmony | Humanity | Meaning | Nations | Perfection | Progress | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Will | World |
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
Memory | Nothing | Presumption | Progress |
If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may be the greatest revolution of all.
Man | Nothing | Progress | Revolution | Tradition |