Quotes & Sayings About Improvements

When we look ahead to 2018, we should expect big steps forward in science to come once again from changes in style rather than from marginal improvements in technology. — Freeman Dyson

The breakdown of his(Plato's) philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely. Correct education could not come into existence until an ideal state existed, and after that education would be devoted simply to its conservation. For the existence of this state he was obliged to trust to some happy accident by which philosophic wisdom should happen to coincide with possession of ruling power in the state. — John Dewey

I've become fascinated by the idea that it's really achievable to make two or three small improvements in a week and by the end of the year, it's 150 improvements. — Darrell Hammond

As a country with experience of coping with earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters, Japan believes in emphasizing the mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction. We therefore prioritize investment in disaster prevention and post-disaster improvements under a policy of Build Back Better (BBB). — Shinzo Abe

Previously, until a few years ago, it was customary for the Norwegian to be born with skis on his feet. But one of the improvements that has been made is that this is no longer the case*. Modern research has revealed, in fact, that this could be very uncomfortable and, to some extent, dangerous to the mother.
*It still happens that the birth takes place with skis on the feet, but now it is most often the mother who has the skis on during the birth. — Odd Borretzen

No matter how many improvements have been made, every process is still full of waste and rife with opportunity to improve. — Jeffrey K. Liker

I think higher ed in the U.S. is fairly healthy, and by global standards it dominates, and it makes people more productive. But a lot of our K-12 is a disaster. And the single most important reform would just be to fire the worst ten or 15 percent of teachers in the lot, and we would have massive improvements. — Tyler Cowen

John Quincy Adams ranks with Jimmy Carter on the roster of ex-presidential redemption. Instead of completing a biography of his father, he let himself be elected to the House, where he spent nine terms in Whiggish opposition to the Democrats, supporting a national bank and a protective tariff and internal improvements. — Thomas Mallon

Arguably the greatest technological triumph of the century has been the public-health system, which is sophisticated preventive and investigative medicine organized around mostly low- and medium-tech equipment; ... fully half of us are alive today because of the improvements. — Richard Rhodes

I do three drafts handwritten and then it's typed up ... They are different from each other, they are hopefully improvements in the sense you're going back over something. The first time you write it, it's the first thing that you can think. The second time you're trying to shape the dialogue, helping the characters. The third time you're doing it because you want the words to sound nice, hopefully making the prose better, making it more fun to read, making the jokes funnier and the scary bits scarier. — Clive Barker

My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements. — Ernest Hemingway,

When I'm writing a score, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve on it, even when I think it's working well. I don't give up on things, and am always trying to make incremental improvements, which means I never finish writing a score early! — Geoff Zanelli

Those who will not face improvements because they are changes, will face changes that are not improvements. — Charlie Munger

That means to push very heavy weight, repeatedly, and to constantly strive to elevate both your baseline numbers and the total weight lifted at the workout - until you start to reach a natural limit relative to your competitive goals. This will deliver improvements in strength and subsequent improvements in endurance performance, and also maximize the hormonal, anti-aging benefits of the workout. — Mark Sisson

Strauss Group continues to strengthen its future growth engines, improve the company's competitive position, and increase market share, while continuing streamlining processes, improvements, and carrying out organizational adjustments in the company. — Ofra Strauss

We are not supposed to run after miracles but we are supposed to run after self-perfection, self-growth, self - improvements. — Sunday Adelaja

When I do programming in my free time and for my own enjoyment, I really want to have a kind of protection: knowing that when I improve a program those improvements will continue to be available to me and others in future versions of the program. — Linus Torvalds

In a 1995 Journal of Trauma article entitled "Humanitarian Benefits of Cadaver Research on Injury Prevention," Albert King calculated that vehicle safety improvements that have come about as a result of cadaver research have saved an estimated 8,500 lives each year since 1987. For every cadaver that rode the crash sleds to test three-point seat belts, 61 lives per year have been saved. For every cadaver that took an air bag in the face, 147 people per year survive otherwise fatal head-ons. For every corpse whose head has hammered a windshield, 68 lives per year are saved. — Mary Roach

One of the most important improvements in the No Child Left Behind Act for migrant students was the requirement for electronic transfer of migrant student records. — Ruben Hinojosa

We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow. — Stephen R. Covey

I don't train to look good in the mirror. I train to make improvements in my game. — Duncan Keith

Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren't trained to lead large-scale change. — John P. Kotter

Do you feel that? It is a calm shift in the wind.
Do you hear that? It is a soft whisper of hope.
Do you see that? It is the divine hand of guidance, mercifully extended to aid our good fight. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life. — Edward Gibbon

Americans thinking that America will continue to lead the world in innovation and quality of life without some quick and serious educational improvements are dangerously delusional. — Dean Kamen

Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements ... are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations. — Alexander Hamilton

I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain. — Nikola Tesla

When I was twenty-five and living in Chicago, the building supers were two very polite and meticulous meth heads. Matt and I lived above them and listened to them constantly washing their floors. They also loved to vacuum. They often spent the night rearranging furniture and wiping down surfaces. More than once I woke to the sound of them sweeping the porch steps, moving the same pile of dirt around and around. They were tough to talk to, almost impossible to understand and make eye contact with, but I had a strange affection for their ability to channel their meth-taking into real apartment improvements. — Amy Poehler

When we are stuck in a rut we are being invited to grow and expand. — Dana Arcuri

Henry had never felt so happy. Freshperson year had been one thing, an adventure, an exhilaration, all in all a success, but it had also been exhausting, a constant struggle and adjustment and tumult. Now he was locked in. Every day that summer had the same framework, the alarm at the same time, meals and workouts and shifts and SuperBoost at the same times, over and over, and it was that sameness, that repetition, that gave life meaning. He savored the tiny variations, the incremental improvements
tuna fish on his salad instead of turkey; tow extra reps on the bench press. Every move he made had purpose. — Chad Harbach

EMACS could not have been reached by a process of careful design, because such processes arrive only at goals which are visible at the outset, and whose desirability is established on the bottom line at the outset. Neither I nor anyone else visualized an extensible editor until I had made one, nor appreciated its value until he had experienced it. EMACS exists because I felt free to make individually useful small improvements on a path whose end was not in sight. — Richard Stallman

If all females were not only well educated themselves but were prepared to communicate in an easy manner their stores of knowledge to others; if they not only knew how to regulate their own minds, tempers, and habits but how to effect improvements in those around them, the face of society would be speedily changed. — Catharine Beecher

Constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. — P.T. Barnum

God brings men [and women] into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse [teach and improve] them. [It is fair and appropriate to get excited about what those lessons and improvements to you will mean for the future happiness of you and those you care about.] — John H. Aughey

He said you couldn't pretend the terrible things in life didn't happen. You can't clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It's how you learn. And try to make improvements. — Marisha Pessl

The crowd swarmed together and followed him at a distance, talking excitedly and asking questions and finding out the facts. Finding out the facts and passing them on to others, with improvements
improvements which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel, and made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the last. — Mark Twain

Continued focus on (employee) turnover is of critical importance, because of the direct relation of turnover to improvements in labor costs and guest satisfaction. — Finley Peter Dunne

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before. — Thomas Paine

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements. — Adam Smith

A fundamental shift of our perceptions and consciousness are necessary for any great improvements for mankind. — Debasish Mridha

He was frigging Dionysus! The man who invented the three-way! He'd had sex every possible way known to man. He'd made improvements to the Kama Sutra. And he was suffering from a major case of wet noodle. — Rosanna Leo

Having worked as a clinician for almost 40 years, I have seen some young adults, who had the classic, clear and conspicuous signs of Asperger's syndrome in early childhood, achieve over decades a range of social abilities and improvements in behaviour such that the diagnostic characteristics became sub-clinical; that is, the person no longer has a clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important area of functioning. There may still be very subtle signs of Asperger's syndrome, but when the diagnostic tests are re-administered, the person achieves a score below the threshold to maintain the diagnosis. There is now longitudinal research that is starting to confirm clinical experience that about 10 per cent of those who originally had an accurate diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome in childhood no longer have sufficient impairments to justify the diagnosis (Cederlund et al. 2008; Farley et al. 2009). — Tony Attwood

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable. — Charles Dickens

We are in the ordinary position of scientists of having to be content with piecemeal improvements: we can make several things clearer, but we cannot make anything clear. — Frank P. Ramsey

What matters most is for the school, the district, and the state to be able to say that more students have reached "proficiency." This sort of fraud ignores the students' interests while promoting the interests of adults who take credit for nonexistent improvements. — Diane Ravitch

Improvements in lending practices driven by information technology have enabled lenders to reach out to households with previously unrecognized borrowing capacities. — Alan Greenspan

Modern medical advances have helped millions of people live longer, healthier lives. We owe these improvements to decades of investment in medical research. — Ike Skelton

Small improvements in the way you use your time can translate into major differences in your life. — Brian Tracy

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept? — Frank Herbert

The journalists think that they cannot say too much in favor of such "improvements" in husbandry; it is a safe theme, like piety;but as for the beauty of one of these "model farms," I would as lief see a patent churn and a man turning it. They are, commonly, places merely where somebody is making money, it may be counterfeiting. — Henry David Thoreau

If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort - provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly. — Prince Philip

An extraordinary life is all about daily, continuous improvements in the areas that matter most. — Robin Sharma

Kaizen should be done when times are good or when the company is profitable, since your efforts to streamline and make improvements when the company is poor are limited to reduction in staff. Even if you try to go lean and cut out the fat to improve business performance, when your business is in a very difficult position financially there is no fat to be cut. If you are cutting out muscle, which you need, then you cannot say that your efforts to become lean are succeeding.The most important thing about doing kaizen is to do kaizen when times are good, the economy is strong, and the company is profitable — Taiichi Ohno

With time, the 'wheat bargain' became more and more burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread by the sweat of their brows. The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. — Yuval Noah Harari

Now this was clearly one of the greatest improvements on the education system since time began and I was greatly looking forward to being enrolled but Aunt Penn said that I didn't have to do much of anything until autumn term, which didn't start until September, and by that time no one was going to school anyway due to the You Know What. — Meg Rosoff

Sergeant Grigori Peshkov. He was elected unopposed. Grigori was pleased. He knew what life was like for soldiers and workers, and he would bring the machine-oil smell of real life to the corridors of power. He would never forget his roots and put on a top hat. He would make sure that unrest led to improvements, not to random violence. Now he had a real chance to make a better life for Katerina and Vladimir. — Ken Follett

Democracy is a continuous, open process of civility.
A democracy can never be "done"; updating democracy can never be over.

Democracy can be nothing else but a continuous process, because we use it to organize our life, and life is nothing but a continuous process.

Democracy can be compared to an operating system or an anti-virus software; if it does not get perpetually updated, it becomes obsolete very fast.

Trusting the updates or the "improvements" of democracy to the elected and the owned mass media is like trusting the updates of an anti-virus program to virus creators; it defeats the purpose of updates or improvements. — Haroutioun Bochnakian

Personal growth will cause a ripple effect as the growth in consciousness of enough people, one by one, can create general change, and lasting social improvements. — Bud Harris

All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The most important impact on society and the world is the cell phone. Cell phones have actually been one of the primary drivers in productivity improvements. — Fabrice Grinda

The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. Paradoxically, a series of 'improvements', each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers. Why — Yuval Noah Harari

The masculine way needs to be revived. The way of the Asuras is a possible answer to India's current problems. But the Asura way cannot and should not be replicated. Some improvements and adjustments are necessary. Questioning must be encouraged. And, it has to be tailored to suit our current circumstances. — Amish Tripathi

Health and happiness improvements can be made by making tiny little adjustments over time. They don't need to be massive big shifts especially if they are unlikely to stay, and you don't have to wait for the start of a new year, new month, new week or even new day to make the change. — Julie Creffield

Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

The news of any politician's death should be listed under 'Public Improvements.' — Frank Dane

Bryk and Schneider also found that relational trust - between teachers and administrators, teachers and teachers, and teachers and parents - has the power to offset external factors that are normally thought to be the primary determinants of a school's capacity to serve students well: "Improvements in academic productivity were less likely in schools with high levels of poverty, racial isolation, and student mobility, but [the researchers] say that a strong correlation between [relational] trust and student achievement remains even after controlling for such factors." 9 — Parker J. Palmer

Far from being parasitic exploiters of the workers, most businessmen were innovators looking to outwit their rivals, by doing things better or cheaper, and in doing so they inevitably brought improvements to the living standards of consumers. Most — Matt Ridley

JACK: Yes, but said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary.
ALGERNON: It usen't to be, I know - but I daresay it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things. — Oscar Wilde

Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds. — Thomas Paine

This process is like starting a fitness regimen for the brain. At the beginning, your muscles burn a little. But over time and with repetition, you become stronger, and the improvements you see in yourself can be remarkable. Becoming a better thinker, just like becoming a better athlete, requires practice. We challenge you to feel the burn. — Sarah Miller Beebe

It is only those who know how to feel that "this is not good" who devise improvements. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Major improvements don't happen over night. Their are many moments inching towards improvement. The difference between those who make major improvements in their lives are the ones who embrace patience and wait through the darkness as long as it takes. — Matthew Donnelly

Utopia's quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England
with improvements — W.S. Gilbert

Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements. — Henry David Thoreau

Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience. — Casey Kasem

Profits might also increase, because improvements might take place in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry, which would augment the produce with the same cost of production. — David Ricardo

They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other. — Eugene Delacroix

What's up?" Christian asked. "Need some hairstyling tips?"
"Tips you stole from me? No thanks. But I hear you've got a really good bacon meatloaf recipe."
It was worth it then and there to see his complete and total surprise.
"Since when do you cook?" he finally managed to stammer.
"Oh, you know. I'm a Renaissance man. I do it all. Send it if you've got it, and I'll give it a try. I'll let you know if I make any improvements."
His smirk returned. "Are you trying to impress a girl?"
"With cooking?" I pointed at my face. "This is all it takes, Ozera. — Richelle Mead

The researchers found that nearly every change they made was followed by a temporary uptick in performance, even when it involved simply undoing a previous change. They concluded that the increases in worker productivity were not due to better lighting or better pay or longer breaks per se. They were just temporary improvements caused by a change in routine. — Hal Herzog

There are all kinds of wonderful new inventions that give you nothing as owners except the opportunity to spend a lot more money in a business that's still going to be lousy. The money still won't come to you. All of the advantages from great improvements are going to flow through to the customers. — Charlie Munger

When you are ready to make your first hires, look for people who understand your passion, want to add to your ideas and can envision ways to make improvements. — Richard Branson

A basic framework for happiness:

- Time spent daily, hopefully in a job that challenges us, but also in our after-hours hobbies.

- An ability to show ourselves that we are making consistent progress and improvements toward a specified goal.

- Energy and attention dedicated each day to an activity that puts us in the zone. — Steve Kamb

That said, we don't approach these improvements as only a surface aesthetic. The producers and we think that these men are helped with their inner needs when they pay attention to their externals. — Kyan Douglas

I typically will work on a lyric in a three-ring binder. On the right side, I'll write the lyric, and on the left side, I put in alternate things ... and things that might be alternates or improvements. I'll turn the page and do it again. I'll turn the page and do it again, or incorporate the improvements. Eventually, I end up with some material, and often it needs to be ordered. — James Taylor

I like pre-production and post the best. I don't like shooting at all. I find it grueling and tough, but I love post and the whole process of seeing the film finally come together. You start ironing out all the rough spots, and the really bad bits you just throw away. So from day one of post to the last day, you see nothing but improvements. — Martin Campbell

The English prison system is altogether mediaeval and outworn. In some of its details, the system has improved since they began to send the Suffragettes to Holloway. I may say that we, by our public denunciation of the system, have forced these slight improvements. — Emmeline Pankhurst

This is like the Six Sigma approach to quality. Six Sigma refers to the quest for continuous improvement, ultimately leading to 3.4 defects per million units. The problem is that once you're heading down this road, there's no room left for amazing improvements and remarkable innovations. Either you rolled ten strikes or you didn't. Organizations that earn dramatic success always do it in markets where asymptotes don't exist, or where they can be shattered. If you could figure out how to bowl 320, that would be amazing. Until that happens, pick a different sport if you want to be a linchpin. — Seth Godin

Much of the cause of the teacher attrition rate is the condition under which many teachers work. "The data suggest that school staffing problems are rooted in the way schools are organized and the way the teaching occupation is treated and that lasting improvements in the quality and quantity of the teaching workforce will require improvements in the quality of the teaching job."39 — Ken Robinson

The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is simply to eat a bit less meat. Local is sometimes good, sometimes bad. But even when it's good, its environmental impact is relatively small compared to other possible improvements. — Tyler Cowen

A Garden, an Elaboratory, a Work - house, Improvements and Breeding, are pleasant and Profitable Diversions to the Idle and Ingenious: For here they miss Ill Company, and converse with Nature and Art; whose Variety are equally grateful and instructing; and preserve a good Constitution of Body and Mind. — William Penn

The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace ... but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power. — Niccolo Machiavelli

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own. — Siegfried Lenz

These brief weekly sessions helped to bring about valuable changes and health improvements in the participants. The motto was: we are all different and special, so we do not attempt to become like somebody else, but connect more deeply with our true selves. — Patrizia Collard

Homeowners who refinanced their mortgages took out cash and reduced their monthly payments at the same time. Much of the cash obtained by refinancing was spent on consumer durables, home improvements and the like. — Martin Feldstein

From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess ... Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature. — Erasmus Darwin

In recent times, European nations, with the use of gunpowder and other technical improvements in warfare, controlled practically the whole world. One, the British Empire, brought under one government a quarter of the earth and its inhabitants. — John Boyd Orr

Contrary to the outstanding work of art, outstanding theory is susceptible to improvements. — Karl Popper

The more we reflect on this state, the more convinced we shall be that it was the least subject of any to revolutions, the best for man, and that nothing could have drawn him out of it but some fatal accident, which, for the public good, should never have happened. The example of the savages, most of whom have been found in this condition, seems to confirm that mankind was formed ever to remain in it, that this condition is the real youth of the world, and that all ulterior improvements have been so many steps, in appearance towards the perfection of individuals, but in fact towards — Steven Pinker

We are making the following improvements to the library experience on your Kindle: — Anonymous

Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat. In our mad rush for progress and modern improvements let's be sure we take along with us all the old-fashioned things worth while. — Laura Ingalls Wilder