If You're Not Improving Quotes & Sayings

To improve the world start by improving yourself. — Matshona Dhliwayo

David Perkins,12 a Harvard psychologist who has devoted his career to improving reasoning, found the same thing. He says that thinking generally uses the "makessense" stopping rule. We take a position, look for evidence that supports it, and if we find some evidence - enough so that our position "makes sense" - we stop thinking. But at least in a low-pressure situation such as this, if someone else brings up reasons and evidence on the other side, people can be induced to change their minds; they just don't make an effort to do such thinking for themselves. — Jonathan Haidt

I am not going to say you are right because I could not take it if you smirked."
"I do not smirk," Vikirnoff claimed.
"Yes, you do. And I detest that after all these centuries, you are making sense. Frankly, its scary."
"It is only that you are not making sense sunce you acquired a lifemate. I hope that does not happen to all men. It would be a shame."
"Your sense of humor is not improving," Nicolae pointed out dryly.
"I do not have a sense of humor." Vikirnoff answered.
"I had not noticed," Nicolae teased. — Christine Feehan

You can't prescribe decently for something you hate. It will always come out wrong. You can't prescribe decently for something you despair in. If you despair of humankind, you're not going to have good policies for nurturing human beings. I think people ought to give prescriptions who have ideas for improving things, ought to concentrate on the things that they love and that they want to nurture. — Jane Jacobs

We like to believe that, in our lifetime, the human condition is improving. — Nick Clooney

Schools are not intended to moralize a wicked world, but to impart knowledge and develop intelligence, with only two social aims in mind: prepare to take on one's share in the world's work, and perhaps in addition, lend a hand in improving society, after schooling is done. — Jacques Barzun

Whatever you tolerate will continue. If he's doing something wrong - not just something that's irritating - you need to stop tolerating it. This is not the same as trying to change him. It simply means that you change how you react to him. — Sheila Wray Gregoire

I love improving, I love being creative and I love being my own boss. — Teddy Sears

Where was the use, originally, in rushing this whole globe through in six days? It is likely that if more time had been taken in the first place, the world would have been made right, and this ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessary now. But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to find out by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet, or some other little convenience, here and there, which has got to be supplied, no matter how much expense or vexation it may cost. — Mark Twain

One succeeds in obtaining an equivalent production at a lower price by improving the arts, trades and agriculture and by developing the physical and moral qualities of workers, farmers and craftsmen. — Antoine Lavoisier

I cannot in good conscience vote in favor of tax cuts, irrespective of their size, or to which segment of the population they are targeted, ... Nor can I support any spending increases that are not related to improving our nation's defense from the obvious and serious threats facing us today. — John McCain

We remain of the view that in many areas of research we are still reliant on primates to achieve our goals for improving human health — Colin Blakemore

Writer's block - so what? Write something bad. Just throw it in the trash can when you're done, you're always improving. That kind of writing is like doing a bunch of push-ups. Every individual push-up is not the important thing. On Tuesday you're going to think, "Is it really important that I do it today?" No, but the collective impact is. If you write every day, you will improve. — N.D. Wilson

I am not concerned with simply surviving. I am very concerned about improving. I start each day by examining yesterday's work and looking for areas where I can improve. I am always trying to draw the characters better, and trying to design each panel somewhat in the manner a painter would treat his canvas. — Charles M. Schulz

Many, if not most, career opportunities come to you through people you know. So the more people you know, the more opportunities you have. Improving your social network is a great example of a system for moving from lower odds to better odds without having a specific goal. — Scott Adams

I have this desire to keep improving, so I find fault. — Heston Blumenthal

With any mannerisms or dialogue, you have to be careful you're not just serving yourself. What happens with improving is a lot of times, if you're not in the framework of the script, you're just making everything easier so it fits you. — Ray Liotta

By accepting you as you are, I do not necessarily abandon all hope of your improving — Ashleigh Brilliant

Focus is scary - until you realize that it only means turning your back on markets you could never have anyway. Sharp focus on jobs that customers are trying to get done holds the promise of greatly improving the odds of success in new-product development. — Clayton Christensen

If you think that by killing men you can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves. — Bertrand Russell

Responding to bereavement by trying to make a difference is certainly both understandable and admirable, but it doesn't give you good reason to raise money for one specific cause of death rather than any other. If that person had died in different circumstances it would have been no less tragic. What we care about when we lose someone close to us is that they suffered or died, not that they died from a specific cause. By all means, the sadness we feel at the loss of a loved one should be harnessed in order to make the world a better place. But we should focus that motivation on preventing death and improving lives per se, rather than preventing death and improving lives in one very specific way. Any other decision would be unfair on those we could have helped more. — William MacAskill

one should not be deterred from improving his possessions for fear lest they be taken away from him or another from opening up trade for fear of taxes; — Niccolo Machiavelli

Here was a guy who had taken much of the Silicon Valley ethic behind moving quickly and running organizations free of bureaucratic hierarchies and applied it to improving big, fantastic machines and chasing things that had the potential to be real breakthroughs we'd been missing. — Ashlee Vance

Besides my strokes improving, I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the game. The travel's not so tough any more, I'm learning my way around the circuit. I'm learning to cope and I'm having fun. That's the key
the tennis is fun and I'm really enjoying it. — Mardy Fish

The shame is in not improving when you have the opportunity! — Bebe Moore Campbell

Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system - just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. - HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA — Debra Landwehr Engle

You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you'll only attain the average and you'll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average. — Shawn Achor

I have those (goals) written down, but don't want to discuss them. Right now, I just want to keep on improving. — Justin Leonard

Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale's department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. — Kurt Vonnegut

One of the most well known secrets to improving your ability to remember your dreams is to place value on them. — Auliq Ice

If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you, and not die, you've got to work to a pretty precise standard. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Men and women are learning animals. If you do not see what they have learned, you're blind. They are creatures ever changing, ever improving, ever expanding their vision and the capacity of their hearts. You are not fair to them when you speak of this as the most bloody century; you are not seeing the light that shines ever more radiantly on account of the darkness; you are not. seeing the evolution of the human soul! ... ... True, what you say about war. Yes, and the cries of the dying, I too have heard them; we have all heard them, through all the decades; and even now, the world is shocked by daily reports of armed conflict. But it is the outcry against these horrors which is the light I speak of; it's the attitudes which were never possible in the past. It is the intolerance of thinking men and women in power who for the first time in the history of the human race truly want to put an end to injustice in all forms.
Marius to Akasha (The Vampire Chronicles) — Anne Rice

Keep making music.. Keep improving your music.. If there's no viral action on your music, you're just not good enough. Don't get mad at the audience, get mad at yourself. Either give up or get better. — Bob Lefsetz

It's a lot to live up to. These pressures of achieving. From the moment you're born, you're pounded with the expectations of what you need to actualize in order to become a success. Go to college. Get married. Raise a family. It's what you're supposed to do. The plans you're supposed to make. The life you're supposed to live. Diverge from the norm and you're frowned upon. Questioned. Shunned. There's something wrong with you if you're not interested in improving yourself. If you can't make a commitment of marriage. If you don't want to have children. So people earn a college degree so they can get a good job. They work at a job they hate just to earn a living. They spend two months' salary on an engagement ring. They pop out a couple of kids they don't really want just so they can fit in. Because it's what their parents did. Because it's what society expects you to do. Because it's safer to take the same path everyone else has traveled. Truth is, no one's listening to Robert Frost. — S.G. Browne

If you don't break your own standards, you will not reach new heights and levels. It is by stretching our limits that we move beyond boundaries. Keep improving! — Israelmore Ayivor

If you loved everything you were writing, you would be deluding yourself or a complete and absolute narcissist. It's not about liking what you write, it's about improving with every word, little by little, exploring your craft, becoming the artist you hope to be one day. And you can only do that by working at it every day. It doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't happen over a weekend, it is a lifelong pursuit. — Brian Michael Bendis

It's often the case that teams working in agile processes do not actually go back to improve the user interface of the software. But, as the saying goes, "it's not iterative if you only do it once." Teams need to make a commitment to continuous improvement, and that means not simply refactoring code and addressing technical debt but also reworking and improving user interfaces. Teams must embrace the concept of UX debt and make a commitment to continuous improvement of the user experience. — Jeff Gothelf

If you would only stop rating a child's ability by your own; and try to find out just what ability a child has, our young folks throughout this big world would show a surprisingly willing disposition to try things which would bring your approbation. A child's brain is an astonishing thing. It has, in its construction, an astounding capacity for absorbing what is brought to it; and not only to think about, but to find ways for improving it. It is today's child who, tomorrow, will, you know, laugh at our ways of doing things. — Ernest Vincent Wright

A faith-healer may or may not start out with fraud in mind. But to his amazement, his patients actually seem to be improving. Their emotions are genuine, their gratitude heart-felt. When the healer is criticized, such people rush to his defence. Several elderly attendees of the channelling at the Sydney Opera House were incensed after the Sixty Minutes expose: 'Never mind what they say,' they told Alvarez, 'we believe in you'.
These successes may be enough to convince many charlatans, no matter how cynical they were at the beginning, that they actually have mystical powers. Maybe they're not successful every time. The powers come and go, they tell themselves. They have to cover the down time. If they must cheat a little now and then, it serves a higher purpose, they tell themselves. Their spiel is consumer-tested. It works. — Carl Sagan

Jeeves."
"Sir?"
"Are you busy just now?"
"No, sir."
"I mean, not doing anything in particular?"
"No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book; but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or, indeed, abandoned altogether. — P.G. Wodehouse

Success isn't owned - it's leased. And rent is due every day. Every single day, someone's coming for your job. Someone's coming for your greatness. If you're the greatest, someone wants to be the greatest, and so if you're not constantly improving your game, somebody else is. — J. J. Watt

When others seem to take advantage of you, do not retaliate by trying to take advantage of them. Use your power in improving yourself, so that you can do better and better work. That is how you are going to win in the race. Later on, those who tried to take advantage of you will be left in the rear. Remember, those who are dealing unjustly with you or with anybody are misusing their mind. They are therefore losing their power, and will, in the course of time, begin to lose ground; but if you, in the mean time, are turning the full power of your mind to good account, you will not only gain more power, but you will soon begin to gain ground. You will gain and continue to gain in the long run, while others who have been misusing their minds will lose mostly everything in the long run. That is how you are going to win, and win splendidly regardless of ill treatment or opposition. — Christian D. Larson

Competitiveness is defined as the ability of companies to compete while maintaining or improving the average standard of living. If you are cutting wages to become more competitive, that's not really more competitive. It's raising the skill and the efficiency of those workers so that they can support and sustain that higher wage. — Michael Porter

They made these improving remarks to one another, but Apollo leaned aside to say to Hermes: "Son of Zeus, beneficent Wayfinder, would you accept a coverlet of chain, if only you lay by Aphrodite's golden side?" To this the Wayfinder replied, shining: "Would I not, though, Apollo of distances! Wrap me in chains three times the weight of these, come goddesses and gods to see the fun; only let me lie beside the pale-golden one!" The — Homer

Just out of curiosity, do they know I'm here?"
"Yep." My Mother did, anyway. Mention of a French tutor had effectively headed off any possibility of shopping.
"I take it they trust you not to do anything inappropriate."
I couldn't tell if he was being serious. I assumed not. "Absolutely. In fact,my mother would probably pay you to do something to make them trust me a little less." I took a look at his face. He looked a little stunned. "Oh,no. I didn't mean-"
Or maybe I did. But Alex was backing away from me, hands raised. "okay."
"J'etais stupide."
He sat down heavily on the edge of my desk, narrowly missing the biscotti. "I wouldn't say that. But your use of the imperfect is improving."
"Just what I always wanted," I said sadly, "to get better at imperfection. — Melissa Jensen

Possibly everyone now dead considered his own death as a freak accident, a mistake. Some bad luck caused it. Every enterprising man jack of them, and every sunlit vigorous woman and child, too, who had seemed so alive and pleased, was cold as a meat hook, and new chattering people trampled their bones unregarding, and rubbed their hands together and got to work improving their prospects till their own feet slipped and they went under themselves ... Every place was a tilting edge. — Annie Dillard

Twitter actually may be improving its users' writing, as it forces them to wring meaning from fewer letters - it — Christian Rudder

Health care is, at its core, about improving the odds of life in its struggle against death. Of extending that game which we will all lose, each and every one of us unto eternity, extending it another year or month or second. — Keith Olbermann

I think it's important for an actor to see the work they've done because every time you revisit a work you come up with a new way of improving it. It's a good way to brush up your craft and your skills, so I think it's a good thing to do, keep seeing your films. — Abhishek Bachchan

Many people think voice over artists just read, there's much more to it. Without acting beats, scene study and improving skills, you won't make it. — Tara Strong

Energy-saving technologies keep improving faster than they're applied, so efficiency is an ever larger and cheaper resource. — Amory Lovins

Man was created as a being who should constantly keep improving, a being who on reaching one goal sets a higher one. — Ralph Ransom

I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future
and the first step begins with the social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt - as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so. — George Lucas

I'm condemned by some inner compulsion to think about the daily rituals of my life. I have a low grade fever for improving myself in many ways, including everyday tasks. — Alan Alda

When I say 'publishing is the new literacy,' I don't mean there's no role for curation, for improving material, for editing material, for fact-checking material. I mean literally, the act of putting something out in public used to be reserved in the same way. — Clay Shirky

The organization is "committed to improving the state of the world." In practice it is mainly a rich people's club, committed to preserving the existing world order. — John Lanchester

In the private sector, there is always innovation. There's always change. There's always improving productivity, and if you're not leading that, you'll be passed and ultimately go out of business. So there's an urgency to constantly update and renew and to rethink your enterprise. — Mitt Romney

When we get together and rehearse, which is always living with each other, we always talk about what would make it better, what would mean more, what would say more. So we're always improving and growing. — Alice Cooper

The smart way to improve broadband is not to junk the existing network but to make the most of it. It's to let a competitive market deliver the speeds that people need at an affordable price with government improving infrastructure in the areas where market competition won't deliver it. — Tony Abbott

Jordan Grafman, head of the cognitive neuroscience unit at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, explains that the constant shifting of our attention when we're online may make our brains more nimble when it comes to multitasking, but improving our ability to multitask actually hampers our ability to think deeply and creatively. — Nicholas Carr

The only true security in life comes from knowing that every single day you are improving yourself in some way, that you — Anthony Robbins

For much of the year, you're just trying to maintain your fitness. It's not often you get a lot of time to really concentrate on improving it. — Andy Murray

In previous ages the word 'art' was used to cover all forms of human skill. The Greeks believed that these skills were given by the gods to man for the purpose of improving the condition of life. In a real sense, photography has fulfilled the Greek ideal of art; it should not only improve the photographer, but also improve the world. — David Hurn

I have learned that we may change the very nature of our thoughts, by changing the tone of voice we are thinking in! No one has ever paid attention to what tone of voice they are speaking in, during the time that their words are going on in their heads! People only pay attention to their tones of voice when their words are on their tongues! But it is the tone of voice we think in, that is responsible for creating the energy we emit. You may be screaming on the inside and even though you are calm on the outside, you are going to create the energy of your thoughts. If you want real change in your life, in your mind - really, just change the tone of voice that you think in! — C. JoyBell C.

I personally think that we can win the World Cup. We are improving with every game. With such a young average age in the squad we can only carry on improving. — Ruud Van Nistelrooy

The abortion industry can try to improve its 'messaging' all it wants. But unless abortion advocates change their devotion to abortion-on-demand, the only message Americans will receive is that the abortion industry is only really interested in improving its bottom line at the expense of the most defenseless among us. — Gary Bauer

The meaning of all addictions could be defined as endeavors at controlling our life experiences with the help of external remedies. . . . Unfortunately, all external means of improving our life experiences are double-edged swords: they are always good and bad. No external remedy improves our condition without, at the same time, making it worse. — Thomas Hora

Pro-life includes improving life after birth. — Mike Huckabee

I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars. — Diane Ackerman

I don't worry about maintaining the quality of my life, because every day I work on improving it. — Tony Robbins

Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it's related to staying true to our commitments even when we're not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit. Because when you don't come back the next day - when you permanently turn your back on a commitment - your effort plummets to zero. As a consequence, your skills stop improving, and at the same time, you stop producing anything with whatever skills you have. — Angela Duckworth

The difference between famous creators and struggling artists is that the creators know that improving the lives of others deserves the highest reward. — Alan Cohen

Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself. — Zhang Ziyi

Isn't it amazing how photography has advanced without improving. — Charles Sheeler

This is what it means to serve: improving another's life and, in turn, improving the world. — Daniel H. Pink

The world we live in takes a multifaceted approach. To the American taxpayer: We need to be investing in improving people's lives before the terrorists try to take over. — Lindsey Graham

Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself. — Derek Sivers

I always try to remember that I am a work in progress. When I maintain that perspective, I realize that I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to have it all together. I don't need to try to have all the answers. And I don't need to learn everything in a day. When I make a mistake, it's not because I'm a failure or worthless. I just didn't do something right because I still haven't improved enough in some part of the process. And that motivates me to keep growing and improving. If I don't know something, it's an opportunity to try to improve in a new area. — John C. Maxwell

The German people were not denied, however, the possibility of improving their lot by hard work over the years. Industrial growth and progress were not denied them. — James F. Byrnes

On the acquisition of Louisiana, in the year 1803, the attention of the government of the United States, was early directed towards exploring and improving the new territory. — Meriwether Lewis