This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the full development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
The consciousness of the individual person unfolds as the experience of his own inner history. Every single moment is a phase in his historical becoming. Everything coming into consciousness in a specific moment is determined by how it fits into the course of this becoming or how it arrests or runs counter to it. Everything attention lays hold of, is present and is now. But this Now is the Now of the inner life-history, whose progress in becoming is not measurable by the standard of objective time
Attention | Consciousness | Experience | Individual | Present | Progress |
I strongly believe that education is the best means for people to progress in life. It gives people many, many choices for the kind of life they want to live, and the kind of lifestyle they want to have. But more importantly I think – and it’s a cliché, but it’s true – a well-educated society maintains a rich democracy. When our society is not well educated, democracy suffers. The other reason that I strongly support public education is that it is the best means for people who come from poor economic background to escape poverty. The obstacles are greater, but at least the opportunities are there. Education helps to level the playing field.
Democracy | Education | Life | Life | Means | People | Progress | Public | Reason | Society | Society | Think |
Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.
Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
Progress |
The principle of maximum diversity says that the laws of nature, and the initial conditions at the beginning of time, are such as to make the universe as interesting as possible. As a result, life is possible but not too easy. Maximum diversity often leads to maximum stress. In the end we survive, but only by the skin of our teeth. This is the confession of faith of a scientific heretic. Perhaps I may claim as evidence for progress in religion the fact that we no longer burn heretics.
Beginning | Diversity | Evidence | Faith | Life | Life | Progress | Religion | Universe |
F. A. Hayek, fully Friedrich August Hayek or von Hayek
The progress of the natural sciences in modern times has of course so much exceeded all expectations that any suggestion that there may be some limits to it is bound to arouse suspicion.
Progress |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
Experience | Individual | Progress | Suffering |
The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
Civilization | Intelligence | Mind | Progress | Wealth |
In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane… It refers to the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit, [but] since what produces man’s well-being and refinement is knowledge and virtue, civilization ultimately means the progress of man’s knowledge and virtue.
Attainment | Civilization | Comfort | Cultivation | Knowledge | Life | Life | Means | Progress | Refinement | Virtue | Virtue |
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.
Cause | Enough | Evil | Good | Men | Progress | Scepticism | World | Worth |
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership.
Better | Democracy | Existence | Faith | Force | Freedom | Good | Important | Insecurity | Inspiration | Means | Men | Nations | Need | Opinion | People | Present | Principles | Progress | Strength | Tyranny | Understanding | World | Leadership |
Gerald Ford, fully Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr., Orig. name Leslie Lynch King, Jr.
History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.
Experience | Progress | Trial |
Given ample time and rather simple circumstances not likely to be unique in the universe, there does seem to be considerable probability , perhaps even inevitability, in the progress from dissociated atoms to macromolecules. The further organization of those molecules into cellular life would seem, on the face of it, to have a far different, very much lower order of probability. It is not impossible, because we know it did happen at least once.
Circumstances | Life | Life | Order | Organization | Progress | Time | Unique |
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
I believe our students must first seek to understand the conditions, as far as possible without national prejudices, which have led to past tragedies and should strive to determine the great fundamentals which must govern a peaceful progression toward a constantly higher level of civilization. There are innumerable instructive lessons out of the past, but all too frequently their presentation is highly colored or distorted in the effort to present a favorable national point of view. In our school histories at home, certainly in years past, those written in the North present a strikingly different picture of our Civil War from those written in the South. In some portions it is hard to realize they are dealing with the same war. Such reactions are all too common in matters of peace and security. But we are told that we live in a highly scientific age. Now the progress of science depends on facts and not fancies or prejudice. Maybe in this age we can find a way of facing the facts and discounting the distorted records of the past.
Age | Effort | Past | Peace | Present | Progress | Science | War | Govern | Understand |
Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
It is imperative that the past of the pilgrims' progress be intentionally carried forward into the present as we work into our future. Without it we cannot know who we are, why we are here, or where we can go. Without a common past to live out of we become aimless and wandering individuals instead of a pilgrim people
Life does not stand still. Where there is no progress there is disintegration... Today is the day in which to attempt and achieve something worthwhile.
True democratic progress doesn't lie in lowering the elite to the level of the crowd, but in elevating the crowd towards the level of the elite
Progress |