Idea Of Progress Quotes & Sayings

Mankind today is still making history without having any conscious idea of what it really wants or under what conditions it would stop being unhappy; in fact what it is doing seems to be making itself more unhappy and calling that unhappiness progress. — Norman O. Brown

Method means primarily a way or path of transit. From this we are to understand that the first idea of method is a progressive transition from one step to another in any course. If in the right course, it will be the true method; if in the wrong, we cannot hope to progress. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Magazines devoted to the religion of success appear as Makers of America. They mean just about that when they preach evolution, progress, prosperity, being constructive, the American way of doing things. It is easy to laugh, but, in fact, they are using a very great pattern of human endeavor. For one thing it adopts an impersonal criterion; for another it adopts an earthly criterion; for a third it is habituating men to think quantitatively. To be sure the idea confuses excellence with size, happiness with speed, and human nature with contraption. Yet the same motives are at work which have ever actuated any moral code, or ever will. The desire fir the biggest, the fastest, the highest, or if you are a maker of wristwatches or microscopes the smallest; the love in short of the superlative and the "peerless," is in essence and possibility a noble passion. — Walter Lippmann

To a Certain Cantatrice Here, take this gift, I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any. — Walt Whitman

Now, ideas are the raw material of progress. Everything first takes shape in the form of an idea. But an idea itself is worth nothing. An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything. The men who have won fame and fortune through having an idea are those who devoted every ounce of their strength and every dollar they could muster to putting it into operation. Ford had a big idea, but he had to sweat and suffer and sacrifice to make it work. — B.C. Forbes

Of all the old prejudices that cling to the hem of the woman's garments and persistently impede her progress, none holds faster than this. The idea that she owes service to a man instead of to herself, and that it is her highest duty to aid his development rather than her own, will be the last to die. — Susan B. Anthony

I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of great Americans
the poets and seers. Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blueprint. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress
but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal. — Henry Miller

If you want to be drunk, become drunk with an idea. If you want pleasure, have pleasure from the pursuit of your passion. If you want to be indoctrinated, then be so by the natural law of humanism. — Abhijit Naskar

When women internalized the idea that describing their own woe was synonymous with developing a critical political consciousness, the progress of the feminist movement was stalled. — Bell Hooks

[To the cultures of Asia and the continent of Africa] it is the Western impact which has stirred up the winds of change and set the processes of modernization in motion. Education brought not only the idea of equality but also another belief which we used to take for granted in the West-the idea of progress, the idea that science and technology can be used to better human conditions. In ancient society, men tended to believe themselves fortunate if tomorrow was not worse than today and anyway, there was little they could do about it. — Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson Of Lodsworth

I'm willing to work with anyone of either party who has a good idea and the commitment to see through. And we should all expect you to hold us accountable for our progress or our failure to deliver. — Barack Obama

It is a very great mistake, and a very common one, even for well-read persons, to adopt the idea that the progress of the human race in the science of government, in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the establishment of morality and religion, has been constantly and steadily towards improvement and perfection. — Samuel Freeman Miller

The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe — Walter Benjamin

If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it To-morrow. — Victor Hugo

It is not surprising that liberals believed in progress. The idea of progress justified the entire transition from feudalism to capitalism. It legitimated the breaking of the remaining opposition to the commodification of everything, and it tended to wipe away all the negatives of capitalism on the grounds that the benefits outweighed, by far, the harm. — Immanuel Wallerstein

The rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date. Only a few people can keep up with the rapidly advancing frontier of knowledge, and they have to devote their whole time to it and specialize in a small area. The rest of the population has little idea of the advances that are being made
or the excitement they are generating. — Stephen Hawking

And the Republican Party especially associates the market with the idea of progress, goodness, family, and points us toward the mall as an answer to all our personal dreams. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

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. — Rabindranath Tagore

The American idea of progress is the tradition that we're defending. It is made possible precisely by sustaining our deep ties to the ideals of liberty, and equality, and human dignity expressed in our founding and our institutions. The great moral advances in our history have involved the vindication of those principles - have involved America becoming more like itself. — Yuval Levin

You needn't be confused about which "expert" to believe, just talk to elders around you, people who have lived in your part of the world for the past seventy or eighty years. Ask them what they remember about the air, about other species, about the water, about neighbourhoods and communities, about caring between people and the ways they communicated and entertained each other. Our elders tell us of the immense changes that have occurred in the span of a single human life; all you have to do is to project the rate of change they have experienced into the future to get an idea of what might be left in the coming decades. Is this progress? Is this way of life sustainable? — David Suzuki

I am so grateful for my physical therapist, Teresa England, who taught me to respect the process of recovery. Healing is sometimes slow, and any pace but fast was alien to me. To me, the idea of patience and gradual progress was a very foreign idea. I truly learned patience from this woman, and how to appreciate the smallest signs of improvement. — Tara Subkoff

He could be anywhere by now, so that is where I look for him. Anywhere...
There are times when I don't recognize this woman who plays with such self-possession. She is something that I have faked. She is William Tyne's daughter, I supposed; his idea of her. I put her forward when I am performing so that he will approach me. I strive to make her taller than she is, more graceful, less unsure. I don't think other people have to try so hard in their lives. Or do they? Are we all living like this? So close to this mesh of nerves?
So I played for my father another concerto, though he was never one for sitting still in a chair. He would make an exception for me, though, his firstborn. He would see the progress I have made. — Claire Kilroy

We tend to credit those who create an idea, not those who perfect it, forgetting that it is often only in the perfection of an idea that true progress occurs. Putting sixty-four transistors on a chip allowed people to dream of the future. Putting four million transistors on a chip actually gave them the future. — Malcolm Gladwell

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes. — Salman Rushdie

Time, which measures everything in our idea, and is often deficient to our schemes, is to nature endless and as nothing; it cannot limit that by which alone it had existence; and as the natural course of time, which to us seems infinite, cannot be bounded by any operation that may have an end, the progress of things upon this globe, that is, the course of nature, cannot be limited by time, which must proceed in a continual succession. — James Hutton

It would be easy to show that at our present rate of progress the kingdoms of this world never could become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Indeed, many in the Church are giving up the idea of it except on the occasion of the advent of Christ, which, as it chimes in with our own idleness, is likely to be a popular doctrine. I myself believe that King Jesus will reign, and the idols be utterly abolished ... The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon His holy name that He was not able to convert the world. — Charles Spurgeon

If you're only sceptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything. You become a crochety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) Since major discoveries in the borderlines of science are rare, experience will tend to confirm your grumpiness. But every now and then a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you're too resolutely and uncompromisingly sceptical, you're going to miss (or resent) the transforming discoveries in science, and either way you will be obstructing understanding and progress. Mere scepticism is not enough. — Carl Sagan

It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world's progress toward peace ... Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man? — Mahatma Gandhi

A peek-a-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is an improbable world. It is a world in which the idea of human progress, as Bacon expressed it, has been replaced by the idea of technological progress. The aim is not to reduce ignorance, superstition, and suffering but to accommodate ourselves to the requirements of new technologies. We tell ourselves, of course, that such accommodations will lead to a better life, but that is only the rhetorical residue of a vanishing technocracy. We are a culture consuming itself with information, and many of us do not even wonder how to control the process. We proceed under the assumption that information is our friend, believing that cultures may suffer grievously from a lack of information, which, of course, they do. It is only now beginning to be understood that cultures may also suffer grievously from information glut, information without meaning, information without control mechanisms. — Neil Postman

I love Rauschenberg. I love that he created a turning point in visual history, that he redefined the idea of beauty, that he combined painting, sculpture, photography, and everyday life with such gall, and that he was interested in, as he put it, 'the ability to conceive failure as progress.' — Jerry Saltz

Whole idea of progress - that presence is based on the past, that future generations are going to improve our achievements, and that man will be always moving forward - obviously negate the idea of some absolute measure. Everything became relative, just like in Hume's subjectivism. Man's current criterion was left for future generations to improve it. After a while, people realized that this is philosophy of continuous change, continuous moving. Then, a soul became upset. It felt there is no peace, there is no safety. — Seraphim Rose

I do not know by what extraordinary mental accident modern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the idea of independent thinking. Progress is obviously the antithesis of independent thinking. For under independent or individualistic thinking, every man starts at the beginning, and goes, in all probability, just as far as his father before him. But if there really be anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past. — G.K. Chesterton

The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they are dogmas. It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate body, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they are dogmas. It may be thought 'dogmatic,' for instance, in some circles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvement of man in another world. But it is not thought "dogmatic" to assume the perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea of progress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, and from a rationalistic point of view quite as improbable. Progress happens to be one of our dogmas, and a dogma means a thing which is not thought dogmatic. — G.K. Chesterton

Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. — Edward Bellamy

Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The idea of progress - the notion that human history is the history of human betterment - dominated the world view of the West between the Enlightenment and the First World War. — Jill Lepore

All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded-certain things must be believed-certain things must be done-and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of indivuality or hope of intellectual growth or progress. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Books saved you. Having become your refuge, they sustained you. The power of books, this marvelous invention of astute human intelligence. Various signs associated with sound: different sounds that form the word. Juxtaposition of words from which springs the idea, Thought, History, Science, Life. Sole instrument of interrelationships and of culture, unparalleled means of giving and receiving. Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort that leads to progress. They enabled you to better yourself. What society refused you, they granted. — Mariama Ba

The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I'm convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies
NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science
but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits. — Buzz Aldrin

In the GDR people were required to acknowledge an assortment of fictions as fact. Some of these fictions were fundamental, such as the idea that human nature is a work-in-progress which can be improved upon, and that Communism is the way to do it. Others were more specific: that East Germans were not the Germans responsible (even in part) for the Holocaust; that the GDR was a multi-party democracy; that socialism was peace-loving; that there were no former Nazis left in the country; and that, under socialism, prostitution did not exist. — Anna Funder

Inherent in this rejection of evolution is the idea that your curiosity about the world is misplaced and your common sense is wrong. This attack on reason is an attack on all of us. Children who accept this ludicrous perspective will find themselves opposed to progress. They will become society's burdens rather than its producers, a prospect that I find very troubling. Not only that, these kids will never feel the joy of discovery that science brings. They will have to suppress the basic human curiosity that leads to asking questions, exploring the world around them, and making discoveries. They will miss out on countless exciting adventures. We're robbing them of basic knowledge about their world and the joy that comes with it. It breaks my heart. — Bill Nye

Organization is simply the means by which the acts of ordinary men can be made to add up to extraordinary results. To this idea of progress that does not wait on some lucky break, some chance discovery, or some rare stroke of genius, but instead is achieved through systematic, cumulative effort, the engineer has contributed brilliantly. — William Wickenden

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white. — James A. Baldwin

We use generators," Abram explained. "For the basics, but we don't believe in progress for the sake of progress, nor do we hold with the idea of acquiring for the sake of showing ourselves better than our neighbors, which is often a byproduct of your modern conveniences. All of these things distance one from nature and a true relationship with our God. — Ruth Price

All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce. The line of thinking that is traced in this book runs in an opposite direction - not only in questioning the idea of progress but also, and more fundamentally, in rejecting the idea that it is only through action that life can be meaningful. Politics is only a small part of human existence, and the human animal only a very small part of the world. Science and technology have given us powers we never had before, but not the ability to refashion our existence as we wish. Poetry and religion are more realistic guides to life. — John N. Gray

Catastrophes come when some dominant institution, swollen like a soap-bubble and still standing without foundations, suddenly crumbles at the touch of what may seem a word or idea, but is really some stronger material source. — George Santayana

Let no one misunderstand our idea; we do not confound what are called 'political opinions' with that grand aspiration after progress with that sublime patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days, should be the very foundation of all generous intelligence. — Victor Hugo

Dismissing socialization and gender roles as piddling compared to this amorphous idea of 'maternal imperative' is part of the reason progress is stalled for family-friendly policies. — Jessica Valenti

What is an obsession? It is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. Religious fanatics are a prime example, as are those people who become enveloped in a political concept. Most of man's progress has come about as a result of obsessions. The Wright brothers were not just tinkerers with an idea; their idea swallowed them up. Most leaders are obsessed with power or possessed by egos so large their only concern is their place in history. I have known writers obsessed with a single subject. Like Bobby Fischer and chess, anything and everything outside their subject seems meaningless. Any art form - music, painting, dance - is done best by those who are completely possessed by it. Such possession often borders on madness. This world would be a sorry place without such madmen. — John A. Keel

The rationale for accepting or rejecting any theory is thus fundamentally based on the idea of problem-solving progress. If one research tradition has solved more important problems than its rivals, then accepting that tradition is rational precisely to the degree that we are aiming to "progress," i.e., to maximize the scope f solved problems. In other words, the choice of one tradition over its rivals is a progressive (and thus a rational) choice precisely to the extent that the chosen tradition is a better problem solver than its rivals. — Larry Laudan

When the first people started to argue against slavery, for example, this was a new idea. If you crowd-source, you'd never come up with this. And so the - exactly the kind of progress we've made couldn't be made if we depend it on crowd-sourcing. — Rebecca Goldstein

Alfred North Whitehead summed it up best when he remarked that the greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the idea of invention itself. We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers - that is to say, as markets. — Neil Postman

Little idea about my teacher:
1. First and foremost My Parents (Both are equal).
2. Next to all my respected teachers who taught me subjective as well practical knowledge, and help me to shape up as a responsible person.
3. Next to all my seniors and elder people who guided me in the path of progress time to time throughout my journey.
4. Next to all my beloved family and friends who are always stood along with me, no matter the time what it was?
5. Next to those entire know-unknown persons who has passed through journey and taught few lessons, tips.
6. Next is the nature, just see it, feel it & learn it.
7. Last but not least kids/children's- a lot of things, no worry, smiles, happiness, this is the best part of this journey.
So it's time to Salute the Real Commanders of our Life
HAPPY TEACHERS DAY
Original from: Amit Gupta — Amit Gupta

Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are.
As a result, rather than converge upon a solution, they diverge, studying people and what they are trying to accomplish, generating idea after idea after idea. It drives managers crazy. Managers want to see progress: designers seem to be going backward when they are given a precise problem and instead of getting to work, they ignore it and generate new issues to consider, new directions to explore. And not just one, but many. — Don Norman

Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality"; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]. — Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

The history of socialism offers a twofold lesson: the fall of the collective as a transforming agent of everyday life, and the rise of technology and its problems. Given this twofold experience, and given that the idea of a revolutionary transformation of the everyday has almost vanished, the withdrawal into an everyday which has not been transformed but which has benefited from a small proportion of technical progress becomes perfectly understandable. No, what is most astonishing is perhaps the fact that this withdrawal has in no way stopped collective organization and overorganization continuing to operate on its own level: the state, important decisions, bureaucracy. 'Reprivatized' life has its own level, and the large institutions have theirs. These levels are juxtaposed or superimposed. — Henri Lefebvre

I came to L.A. for pilot season, and it was so brutal. So brutal. But still, I just want to be making forward progress. There's lots of ideas about being a superstar. But my idea of being a superstar is just going forward and having new challenges and trying out new things. — Kelly McCreary

And this is the sense of the word "grammar" which our inaccurate student detests, and this is the sense of the word which every sensible tutor will maintain. His maxim is "a little, but well"; that is, really know what you say you know: know what you know and what you do not know; get one thing well before you go on to a second; try to ascertain what your words mean; when you read a sentence, picture it before your mind as a whole, take in the truth or information contained in it, express it in your own words, and, if it be important, commit it to the faithful memory. Again, compare one idea with another; adjust truths and facts; form them into one whole, or notice the obstacles which occur in doing so. This is the way to make progress; this is the way to arrive at results; not to swallow knowledge, but (according to the figure sometimes used) to masticate and digest it. — John Henry Newman

The emotional pattern seems to be something like, "[Karl] Polanyi, a person of the left like me, says many true things, beautifully. Therefore his tales about what happened in economic history must be true." Marx before him got similar treatment. Lately the more eloquent of the environmentalists, such as Wendell Berry, get it too. People want to believe that beauty is truth. A supporting emotional frame on the left arises from the very idea of historical progress: "We must be able to do so much better than this wretched capitalism." It is not true, but it motivates. — Deirdre N. McCloskey

I know that certain minds would regard as audacious the idea of relating the laws which preside over the play of our organs to those laws which govern inanimate bodies; but, although novel, this truth is none the less incontestable. To hold that the phenomena of life are entirely distinct from the general phenomena of nature is to commit a grave error, it is to oppose the continued progress of science. — Francois Magendie

Throw an idea into the world and its impact will ripple and reverberate beyond your side of the shore. — A.E. Samaan

At this Linda gave up. Children might or might not enjoy air-raids actually in progress, but a child who was not thrilled by the idea of them was incomprehensible to her, and she could not imagine having conceived such a being. Useless to waste any more time and breath on this unnatural little girl. — Nancy Mitford

Even time is a concept. In reality we are always in the eternal present. The past is just a memory, the future just an image or thought. All our stories about past and future are only ideas, arising in the moment. Our modern culture is so tyrannized by goals, plans, and improvement schemes that we constantly live for the future. But as Aldous Huxley reminded us in his writings, An idolatrous religion is one in which time is substituted for eternity ... the idea of endless progress is the devil's work, even today demanding human sacrifice on an enormous scale. — Jack Kornfield

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. — Leo Tolstoy

[Americans] were, for one thing, so smitten with the idea of progress that they invented things without having any idea whether those things would be of any use. — Bill Bryson

One cannot launch a new history - the idea is altogether unthinkable; there would not be the continuity and tradition. Tradition cannot be contrived or learned. In its absence one has, at the best, not history but 'progress' - the mechanical movement of a clock hand, not the sacred succession of interlinked events. — Osip Mandelstam

When both privileges and the disqualifications of class have been abolished and men have shattered the bonds which once held them immobile, the idea of progress comes naturally into each man's mind; the desire to rise swells in every heart at one, and all men want to quit their former social position. Ambition becomes a universal feeling. — Alexis De Tocqueville

[Doubt] is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas bought in - a trial-and-error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar ... doubt is not to be feared, but welcomed and discussed. — Richard Feynman

Don't we all discover, at some stage or another that there are some things we'll never get any better at, even though we have no idea why and hardly ever notice it when it happens, even though we may have enjoyed these things and might not have been lagging behind last time we checked? Learning to draw, for instance, was a familiar catastrophe - all of a sudden, unaware, you just stop getting any better at it, your drawings never progress beyond those of a four-year-old or a six-year-old, you're left behind by those who "can draw," condemned to producing flat, doughy figures on the page, with no sense of perspective to them and (this was what really struck me) no resemblance to the outside world: condemned by your ruined self to a shameful childhood. — Jean-Christophe Valtat

In time I could move, though my body wasn't thrilled about it. I moved from the floor to the sofa I had fallen off of, which was all the progress I was going to demand from myself right then. Karish was much more ambitious, moving from the floor by the table to the sofa. He sat beside me and without the slightest hesitation or diffidence wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, and I bonelessly complied. Pain eased, muscles loosened, and the beating of his heart helped to drive disturbing images from my mind. For the moment not giving a damn about how it looked or whether it was a bad idea, I curled around him and flattened my palm against his chest so I could feel the blood pulsing around him. — Moira J. Moore

It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies. — Theodor W. Adorno

Technocracy gave us the idea of progress, and of necessity loosened our bonds with tradition - whether political or spiritual. Technocracy filled the air with the promise of new freedoms and new forms of social organization. Technocracy also speeded up the world. We could get places faster, do things faster, accomplish more in a shorter time. Time, in fact, became an adversary over which technology could triumph. And this meant that there was no time to look back or to contemplate what was being lost. — Neil Postman

Different themes inevitably require different methods of expression. This does not imply either evolution or progress; it is a matter of following the idea one wants to express and the way in which one wants to express it. — Pablo Picasso

The idea of innovation is the idea of progress stripped of the aspirations of the Enlightenment, scrubbed clean of the horrors of the twentieth century, and relieved of its critics. — Jill Lepore

And perhaps most important, he gave the nation the idea of American progress - the animating spirit that the future could be better than the present or the past. The greatest American politicians since have prospered by projecting a Jeffersonian vision that the country's finest hours lay ahead. — Jon Meacham

The idea that modernisation makes for enhanced national power and rapid progress and helps everyone achieve greater happiness has its origins in the astonishing political, economic and military successes of western Europe in the 19th century. — Pankaj Mishra

Technological progress becomes even more exciting when it enters into the service of the social idea which demands that not only a small elite but humanity at large should profit by it. — Rudolf Christoph Eucken

Few concepts have offered greater scope for human cruelty than the idea of an immortal soul that stands independent of all material influences, ranging from genes to economic systems. Within a religious framework, a belief in free will supports the notion of sin - which seems to justify not only harsh punishment in this life but eternal punishment in the next. And yet, ironically, one of the fears attending our progress in science is that a more complete understanding of ourselves will dehumanize us. Viewing — Sam Harris

In support of the idea that moral progress is compatible with a biological approach to the human mind and an acknowledgment of the dark side of human nature. 3 — Steven Pinker

This was the invention of modern American philanthropy as we know it. The idea of systematizing giving to achieve human progress was the true innovation of John D. Rockefeller, and ultimately the Rockefeller Foundation's legacy. — Judith Rodin

People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end and that behind all the joyous 'onward and upward' slogans lurks the lascivious voice of death urging us to make haste. — Milan Kundera

If the USA doesn't start learning how to put personal egos aside for the sustainability of a nation, then these "mighty" United States will be no better than the politically divided commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Where progress is slowed because each party thinks any idea from the other party must be stupid or without validity and Independence has become a distant dream squashed by corruption. I suggest politicians go back to kindergarten to learn the basics in decent humanity. The notions of sharing and respect obviously didn't stick the first time. — Cristina Marrero

Even though man himself is mortal, he can imagine neither the end of space nor of time nor of history nor of a people, for he always lives in an illusory infinitude.
Those who are fascinated by the idea of progress do not suspect that everything moving forward is at the same time bringing the end nearer and that joyous watchwords like 'forward' and 'farther' are the lascivious voice of death urging us to hasten to it. — Milan Kundera

The story of Janie's progress through three marriages confronts the reader with the significant idea that the choice one makes between partners, between one man and another (or one woman and another) stretches beyond romance. It is, in the end, the choice between values, possibilities, futures, hopes, arguments (shared concepts that fit the world as you experience it), languages (shared words that fit the world as you believe it to be) and lives. — Zadie Smith

Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize ... the immense riches accumulated by the human race. By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished. — Claude Levi-Strauss

The experience of the Mayas is one more reminder that any interpretation of human evolution based on the idea of unilineal progress forwards (or upwards) is an illusion. Peoples decline as well as rise. — Hugh Thomas

My idea of writing is of unflinching and continual effort, somehow trying to find the right words until you reach a point where you can make no further progress and you either have something or you don't. — James Salter

Altermodern is an in-progress redefinition of modernity in the era of globalisation, stressing the experience of wandering in time, space and mediums. The term 'altermodern has its roots in the idea of 'other-ness (Latin alter = 'other, with English connotation of 'different) and suggests a multitude of possibilities, of alternatives to a single route. It suggests that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end, symbolised by global financial crises. — Nicolas Bourriaud

Colonel Cathcart was impervious to absolutes. He could measure his own progress only in relationship to others, and his idea of excellence was to do something at least as well as all the men his own age who were doing the same thing even better. — Joseph Heller

Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison. — Simone Weil

But that would be putting the clock back," gasped the Governor. "Have you no idea of progress, of development?"
"I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it Going bad in Narnia. — C.S. Lewis

It took a qualified wizard to detect a summoning in progress. It required only a half-literate idiot with a twitch of power and a dim idea of how to use it to attempt one. Before you knew it, a three-headed Slavonic god was wreaking havoc in downtown Atlanta, the skies were raining winged snakes, and SWAT was screaming for more ammo. — Ilona Andrews

The idea that the bumps or depressions on a man's head indicate the presence or absence of certain moral characteristics in his mental equipment is one of the absurdities developed from studies in this field that has long since been discarded by science. The ideas of the phrenologist Gall, however ridiculous they may now seem in the light of a century's progress, were nevertheless destined to become metamorphosed into the modern principles of cerebral localization. — Edward Anthony Spitzka

This magical thinking, this idea that human and personal progress is somehow inevitable, leads to political passivity. ... It has turned whole nations, such as the United States, into self-consuming machines of death. — Chris Hedges

But I already saw no great difference between the psyche and spirituality. To amass knowledge without becoming wise is not my idea of progress in therapy. — M. Scott Peck

a Philosopher could not grasp the modern idea of progress ... until he was willing to abandon ancestor worship, until he analyzed away his inferiority complex toward the past, and realized that his own generation was superior to any yet known — Carl Becker

Quite often, too, a writer who has for a time been believed to possess a great store of ordinarily profound ideas, and who is expected to exercise an extraordinary and serious influence in the progress of society, in the end betrays such shallowness and insipidity of his fundamental idea that no one is sorry when he succeeds in writing himself out too soon. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. — Charles Darwin