Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Progress

"He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature, and a continuous moral progress toward inward contentment and religious submission, is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life." -

"Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress in individuals and in nations." - Berthold Auerbach

"There can be no progress - real, moral progress - except in the individual and by the individual himself." - Charles Pierre Baudelaire

"Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration." -

""Know thyself," said, the old philosophy. "Improve thyself," saith the new. Our great object in time is not to waste our passions and gifts on the things external that we must leave behind, but that we cultivate within us all that we carry into the eternal progress beyond." -

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him - therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." - Samuel Butler

"The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom." - William Ellery Channing

"The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms." - William Ellery Channing

"Tolerance does not mark the progress of religion. It is the fatal sign of its decline." - Isidore van Cleef

"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good." - Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

"Philosophers have very justly remarked that the only solid instruction is that which the pupil brings from his own depths; that the true instruction is not that which transmits notions wholly formed, but that which renders him capable of forming for himself good opinions. That which they have said in regard to the intellectual faculties applies equally to the moral faculties. There is for the soul a spontaneous culture, on which depends all the real progress in perfection." - Joseph Marie, baron de Gérando, born Joseph Marie Degérando, also Joseph-Marie de Gérando

"When working on improving yourself, it is easy to become discouraged because you do not see sufficient progress. Keep trying and do not give up. Every small amount of improvement is a success." - Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

"One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long." -

"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress." -

"Real human progress depends not so much on inventive ingenuity as on conscience." - Albert Einstein

"There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead, choose death because we cannot forget quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings; remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do this, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death." - Albert Einstein

"Truth travels down from the heights of philosophy to the humblest walks of lie, and up from the simplest perceptions of an awakened intellect to the discoveries which almost change the face of the world. At every stage of its progress it is genial, luminous, creative." - Edward Everett

"Change, not habit, is what gets most of us down; habit is the stabilizer of human society, change accounts for its progress." - William Feather

"Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only habits." - Henry Ford

"Two principles govern the moral and intellectual world. One is perpetual progress, the other the necessary limitations to that progress. If the former alone prevailed, there would be nothing steadfast and durable on earth, and the whole of social life would be the sport of winds and waves. If the alter had exclusive sway, or even if it obtained a mischievous preponderancy, every thing would petrify or rot. The best ages of the world are those in which these two principles are the most equally balanced. In such ages every enlightened man ought to adopt both principles, and with one hand develop what he can, with the other restrain and uphold what he ought." - Friedrich Gentz, aka Friedrich von Gentz

"There was once a golden age because golden hearts beat in it. If it comes again, it will scarcely be through scientific progress." - Louise Imogen Guiney

"It is much easier to think right without doing right, than to do right without thinking right. Just thoughts may, and often do, fail of producing just deeds; but just deeds are sure to get just thoughts. The clearest understanding can do little in purifying an impure heart, the strongest little in straightening a crooked one. You cannot reason or talk an Augean stable into cleanliness. A single day's work would make more progress in such a task than a century's words." - Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

"Relationships can become a doorway into a new life - surrendering, growing, giving, creating - or a revolving door which gives us movement without progress and deposits us back into ourselves, not as we could become but as we are." - Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

"The greatest obstacle to progress is not man's inherited pugnacity, but his incorrigible tendency to parasitism." - William Ralph Inge

"Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment." -

"The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety." -

"Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God Himself; and the development of law is only then a progress when it is directed towards those principles which always like Him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice of error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice." - Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva

"Life is based on limitation and compromise. The fact that we forget the meaning of life is the meaning of life. Being in a state of partial awareness allows experience and life to progress. God, as an omniscient being, is not an “experiencing being” because his or her experience is not new. If You were going to start a universe, what would Your options be? You could choose to remain totally stagnant, but that wouldn’t amount to a true universe. You’d need entities that experience it, entities that are fragile and temporary and not omniscient. That’s who we are and why we’re here." - Jaron Lanier, fully Jaron Zepel Lanier

"Civilization is simply applied conscience, and Progress is a widening conscience." - Henry Demarest Lloyd

"The two essential factors of progress: morality and knowledge." - Luigi Luzzatti

"The moment a man ceases to progress, to grow higher, wider and deeper, then his life becomes stagnant." -

"The moral law of the universe is progress." - Guiseppe Mazzini

"Cynics build no bridges; they make no discoveries; no gaps are spanned by them. Cynics may pride themselves in being realistic in their approach, but progress and the onward march of Christian civilization demand an inspiration and motivation that cynicism never affords. If we want progress we must take the forward look." - Paul L. McKay, D.D.

"Anyone who wants to be cured of ignorance must confess it... Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its progress, ignorance its end." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"True progress consists not so much in increasing our needs as in diminishing our wants." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

"No progress in ethnology will be achieved until scholars rid themselves once and for all of the curious notion that everything possesses a history; until they realize that certain ideas and certain concepts are as ultimate for man, as a social being, as specific physiological reactions are ultimate for him, as a biological being." - Paul Radin

"True purity of taste is a quality of the mind; it is a feeling which can, with little difficulty, be acquired by the refinement of intelligence; whereas purity of manners is the result of wise habits, in which all the interests of the soul are mingled and in harmony with the progress of intelligence. That is why the harmony of good taste and of good manners is more common than the existence of taste without manners, or of manners without taste." - Pierre Louis Roederer

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, the farm or office where he works. such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." -

"Change is one thing, progress is another. "Change" is scientific, "progress" is ethical; change is indisputable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy." -

"The technical progress of industry has been a reflection of our ability to apply increasingly accurate methods of measurement to material things. The art of measuring psychological human dimensions is relatively undeveloped. To all of the complexities of management we must bring to bear infinite patience and persistence, consistency and complete sincerity." - Louis Ruthenburg

"True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius, for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world." - Felix Schelling, fully Felix Emmanuel Schelling

"Every right has its responsibilities. Like the right itself, these responsibilities stem from no man-made law, but from the very nature of man and society. The security, progress and welfare of one group is measured finally in the security, progress and welfare of all mankind." - Lewis Schwellenbach, fully Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach

"We usually fall asleep in our relationships... not because we are tired of love but so we can dream of new relationships. Life, however, is a work in progress, and love's challenge is not to see people as they once were but as they might be. People who grow old can also grow love." - Noah benShea

"As a man grows older, he values the voice of experience more and the voice of prophecy less. He finds more of life's wealth in the common pleasures - home, health, children. He thinks more about worth of men and less about their wealth. He boasts less and boosts more. He hurries less, and usually makes more progress. He esteems the friendship of God a little higher." - Roy L. Smith, aka Mr. Methodist

"Progress is always the product of fresh thinking, and much of it thinking which to practical men bears the semblance of dreaming." - Robert Gordon Sproul

"The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals." -

"Complacency is the enemy of progress." - David Stutman

"The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy. But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then existence appears to us a monstrous evil., impetuously rushing towards an unending aimlessness." -

"Charity should be the habit of our estimates; kindness of our feelings; benevolence of our affections; cheerfulness of our social intercourse; generosity of our living; improvement of our progress; prayer of our desires; fidelity of our sex-examination; being and doing good of our entire life." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury