World Improvement Quotes & Sayings

If I listened to all the noise in the world
I would have many standards to conform to But the zeal to succeed
Cuts through the racket — Priscilla Koranteng

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

Persistence is a unique mental strength; a strength that is essential to combat the fierce power of the repeated rejections and numerous other obstacles that sit in waiting and are all part of winning in a fast-moving, ever-changing world. — Bob Proctor

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. . . . — Jon Krakauer

When the West overpowered native populations, these actions, no matter how violent, were rationalized as manifestations of the natural order of things. "Manifest destiny" and "social Darwinism" laid the foundation for violent improvement of the world. Europeans saw themselves as superior and naturally born to rule. They believed that their domination of faraway lands brought "civilization" to the natives. In return, the rulers of the empires benefited. "The purpose of colonies was to supply the mother country with raw materials and to provide a market for her manufactured goods, — Eric Bogosian

Average people have a world view that says being comfortable with who and where they are in life is the key to happiness. The great ones have a world view that says happiness is learning, growing and becoming. — Steve Siebold

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor-the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all-gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. — Abraham Lincoln

Natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being. — Richard Dawkins

If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again! — Sarah Dessen

This, and much more, she accepted - for after all living did mean accepting
the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case - mere
possibilities of improvement. She thought of the endless waves of pain
that for some reason or other she and her husband had to endure; of the
invisible giants hurting her boy in some unimaginable fashion; of the
incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of
this tenderness, which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into
madness; of neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners;
of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have to
watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, as
the monstrous darkness approaches. — Vladimir Nabokov

No government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy managed in the interest of the few. And the enlightenment must proceed in ways which force the administrative specialists to take account of the needs. The world has suffered more from leaders and authorities than from the masses. The essential need ... is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public. — John Dewey

Unwavering incremental change can create remarkable and monumental results. — Ryan Lilly

President David O. McKay put it beautifully when he said, speaking of mothers, 'This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world ... ' (Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, pp. 453-54). — H. Burke Peterson

A collection of good books, with a soul to it in the shape of a librarian, becomes a vitalized power among the impulses by which the world goes on to improvement. — Justin Winsor

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

There are billions of people in the world, and each one of them has their own view of reality. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

[...] if truth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
[review of The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life, Nature 442, 983-984 (31 August 2006)] — Jerry A. Coyne

Adversity challenges the masks we hide behind, revealing sides of ourselves we have not yet comfortably with the world outside. It is why we dislike adversity, because we have to face what we don't yet understand about ourselves. — Michael Arndt

Small steps may appear unimpressive, but don't be deceived. They are the means by which perspectives are subtly altered, mountains are gradually scaled, and lives are drastically changed. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The ordinary naturalist is not sufficiently aware that when dogmatizing on what species are, he is grappling with the whole question of the organic world & its connection with the time past & with Man; that it involves the question of Man & his relation to the brutes, of instinct, intelligence & reason, of Creation, transmutation & progressive improvement or development. Each set of geological questions & of ethnological & zool. & botan. are parts of the great problem which is always assuming a new aspect. — Charles Lyell

Every spoken sentence beginning with 'I Am' is a powerful spell exhaled into action. Describe yourself wisely. — Dacha Avelin

The world actually is a mirror, and as you change, you will see everything around you changing as well as mirroring your changes. — Chris Prentiss

The behavioral programme of the post-social society during the post-capitalism interregnum is governed by a neoliberal ethos of competetive self-improvement, of untiring cultivation of one's marketable human capital, enthusiastic dedication to work, and cheerfully optimistic, playful acceptance of the risks inherent in a world that has outgrown government. That this programme is dutifully implemented is essential, as the reproduction of the post-capitalist society lite hangs on the thin thread of an accommodating systematic architecture. Structuralist critique of false institutions may therefore have to be complemented by a renewed culturalist critique of false consciousness. — Wolfgang Streeck

It is in the moments of silence, that we can be taken to our own world where our real essence longs to be part of — Mimi Novic

The idea that Christianity is basically a religion of moral improvement ... has its roots in the liberal Protestantism of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century ... It is this stereotype which continues to have influence today ... But then came the First World War ... What had gone wrong was that the idea of sin had been abandoned by liberal Christianity as some kind of unnecessary hangover from an earlier and less enlightened period in Christian history. — Alister E. McGrath

Is it not a sign of immaturity to wish for someone's downfall? To wish that he or she fails at whatever productive endeavours they are aiming at? Wishing to be the only one succeeding, while everyone else fails?
It's a world where we are all dependent on one another, one way or the other; and trade is happening at a much more sophisticated level than ever before. It is to our collective benefit for people to succeed. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Love coming out of you makes you happy. The whole world can love you, but that love will not make you happy. What will make you happy is to share all the love you have inside you. That is the love that will make a difference. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

Effective altruism is about asking "How can I make the biggest difference I can?" and using evidence and careful reasoning to try to find an answer. It takes a scientific approach to doing good. Just as science consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's true, and a committment to believe the truth whatever that turns out to be. As the phrase suggests, effective altruism consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's best for the world, and a commitment to do what's best, whatever that turns out to be. — William MacAskill

The wealthiest people in the world are those who can give the most value to the most number of people. — Jan Mckingley Hilado

Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous. So, since becoming CEO again, I've pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world. — Larry Page

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. — Karl Marx

The whole universe wants to contribute to
you. The world wants to contribute to you. The world wants to give you everything you desire - but you don't ask. — Gary M. Douglas

My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. — Robert M. Pirsig

Human being's possess the cognitive ability to survey and study the biological and cultural constraints that influence us in order to gain an enhanced understanding of who each of us are. Comprehension of what comprises a self allows human beings to monitor and regulate their thoughts and actions and therefore revise and modify their sense of self. How much conscious control we assert over our minds as well as what decisions through default we leave essentially unregulated and in the sole providence of the unconscious mind determines our self-identity. Self-identity in turns affects personal decision-making, which alters our external world. The combined impact of millions of people making conscious choices exerts a profound impact upon reality, the physical world that is constantly in flux. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Till we recognize what's sick and messed up about ourselves this world is gonna stay sick and messed up. — Lacey Sturm

It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement. — Anthony Trollope

Utopia' used to denote a coveted, dreamt-of distant goal to which progress should, could and would eventually bring the seekers after a world better serving human needs. In contemporary dreams, however, the image of 'progress' seems to have moved from the discourse of shared improvement to that of individual survival. Progress is no longer thought about in the context of an urge to rush ahead, but in connection with a desperate effort to stay in the race. — Zygmunt Bauman

We are who we are, but we know who we are through our response to the changing world. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Don't devalue yourself, you are the world's most precious stone. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The role of any person in this world is to be themselves without damaging the rest. We are important as long as the rest "is". - Rossana Condoleo — Rossana Condoleo

Whatever your station or position in life, there is always room for improvement, enhancement, and perfection. I say this with a great sense of humility. Regardless of what you are enjoying at the moment, the Lord says that he has something
better for you! No matter what you have achieved, attained, or accomplished
in this world, there are more challenges and blessings ahead. God says that you have stayed long enough on this mountain. It is time to press forward to take more territories and receive more trophies. — Pedro Okoro

We now live in a world where murderers and terrorists can cause death and mayhem, and when the time is "right" for them, they convert to normal human values, and become a global icon and saint! — Tony Dovale

When we repay unkindness with unkindness, we perpetuate the cycle of negativity within which our world is embroiled. We have the right and responsibility to choose differently. — Christopher Earle

Don't kill the Genius in you by doubting your abilities to create impact in the world. — Jeekeshen Chinnappen

God of love, whose gospel is peace.

We pray that through your divine love, that peace would come.
Together we say, May Peace Prevail on earth.
In saying this we also know that we are to be your hands and feet in this world.
Therefore, loving God, enable us to be the change we wish to see in the world around us.
Let us be witnesses for peace and let our peace testimony have an impact on the whole world.
All for your glory and the improvement of the human race.

In the name of our Sweet Prince of Peace,

Amen — David Holdsworth

However, he was happy. He felt he was conquering nature. He laughed aloud. He felt he was stronger than the elements. In this type of weather animals hid in their holes and did not come out. He was out, fighting the elements. He was a man, master of the world. — Jack London

The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. There begins to be a mere vanity in being educated whether it be self-educated or merely state-educated. Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself. Some improvement may be made by turning equally vivid and perhaps vulgar spotlights upon a large number of other people as well. But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars. — G.K. Chesterton

And there was a wonderful thing that tended to happen, something that felt like poetic justice: every time someone started shouting about the supposed monopoly of the Circle, or the Circle's unfair monetization of the personal data of its users, or some other paranoid and demonstrably false claim, soon enough it was revealed that that person was a criminal or deviant of the highest order. One was connected to a terror network in Iran. One was a buyer of child porn. Every time, it seemed, they would end up on the news, footage of investigators leaving their homes with computers, on which any number of unspeakable searches had been executed and where reams of illegal and inappropriate materials were stored. And it made sense. Who but a fringe character would try to impede the unimpeachable improvement of the world? — Dave Eggers

The ingredients that made this country, you know, the miracle of the world - I mean we had a seven for one improvement in the average American standard of living in the 20th century. — Howard Warren Buffett

Faye keeps forgetting what she'll be giving up if she decides to stay here. Access to modern medicine, for starters. In 2015 people can survive cancer, tuberculosis, scarlet fever. Vaccines eradicated polio and measles. Do you really want to live in a world with iron lungs and polio, Faye? Do you?" "I guess I could go back to 2015 and live in a world with meth, heroin, terrorism, HIV and Ebola. Huge improvement, right? — Tiffany Reisz

As far as our relation to the physical world, I doubt there will be much more improvement. Our basic survival needs have been met, and much of our current progress is superfluous or downright troublesome. Most advancement is performed out of comfort rather than necessity. What we are lacking, what the world so desperately needs now, is adjustments of the mind. We need to see the world again with fresh eyes, and come to an understanding of who we are as individuals, and what drives us. — Chris Matakas

Time is not a means to keep or prove your worth in the world, but a means to experience the richness of all that is. — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

The modern world has forgotten the necessity of encouraging men to be better. They speak of sick men or healthy men, of interesting people or uninteresting people; they never, or seldom, indicate that there is and must be an interior and spiritual improvement in man before any of the glowing coals of humanity can be reached. They have cultivated everything but the goodness of man. The result of such shallowness is everywhere apparent. — Francis Beauchesne Thornton

Reading, writing, and personal introspection will not protect us from hardship and suffering, but they might introduce us to critical thinking and expose us to what is good in humankind and beautiful in the world that we share with all of nature. Contemplative thought, especially that supplemented with reading literature and attempting to write our own replies to the echoing voices of writers whom preceded us provide us with the potentiality for change, the possibility of personal illumination that enables us to experience a heighted quality of life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

We wander along the world along many paths and maybe without knowing it we are walking now along one path towards success! — Stephen Richards

A person who is walking around with the belief I am safe in my body is going to
approach the world from a very different place than someone who doesn't believe
that. That person will be more confident in approaching others, as Sonia was in
sharing her business at the women's event. They're going to be much more willing to put themselves out in the world, to be vulnerable in relationships, and to be willing to risk and dare, because they're operating from a place of safety. Page 60 — Nick Ortner

Not much in the world ends up being the same as it started out,
unless of course it had a very short life cycle. — Lorii Myers

When you run up against someone else's shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible?
No. Then don't ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members. — Marcus Aurelius

In the corporate world, what is not showcased well simply doesn't exist for any practical purpose! — Abhishek Ratna

Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators?
They did not die out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines. — Richard Dawkins

Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow. — Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet

Literature provides a person with a conceptual framework for recognizing human beings recurrent challenges in life. Reading good literature deepens a person's understanding of the variable ways that somebody might respond to circumstances in their world, thereby adding to their own potential intellectual and spiritual depth and expands their understanding of the nuances of their own personal behavior. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Before World War I, self-improvement meant being less self-involved, less vain: helping others, focusing on schoolwork, becoming better read, and cultivating empathy. Author — Peggy Orenstein

Temperaments shapes the way we experience the world. Our most important endeavour as teachers must be guiding student's education and helping them cope with challenges, taking risks, learning from failures and inspiring their growth. We need to motivate them to fulfill their potential, to push themselves out of their comfort zones and develop new skills by praising their focus, perseverance and improvement. — Andrea Brajnovic

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. — Charles Darwin

Every thought, action, decision, or feeling creates an eddy in the interlocking, inter-balancing energy fields of life. In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. — David Hawkins

The earth is round for a reason. Your minimum effort starts you at the top of the world; your maximum effort keeps you there. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done? — Barbara Ehrenreich

The world was opening up to Apple bit by bit, and vice versa. The iPod was Apple's first mass-market consumer device, but it had come about because Steve and his team had taken one logical step after another: first iMovie, then a correction leading to iTunes, then the iPod. Steve's patience, discipline, and vision had set Apple on a new course, one that was more complicated than its old path, which had simply involved the regular improvement of personal computers. — Brent Schlender

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. — Ludwig Von Mises

In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us. We all add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life. It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me. — David R. Hawkins

But even though I know my flaws are many (many many many), and there are always ways I could be better, and I should never stop working for that - I also need to give myself a break. I can cut myself some slack sometimes. Because I'm a work in progress. Because nobody is perfect. At least I acknowledge the mistakes I've made, and am making. At least I'm trying. That means something, doesn't it?
And just because I have room for improvement doesn't mean I'm worthless, or that I have nothing to offer to, like, the world. — Hannah Harrington

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end,each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a genaral responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think can be most useful. — Marie Curie

Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. "Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?" Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth. — Henry David Thoreau

I beg to differ on Charles Bukowski, who says nothing can save you, except writing. Sometimes, absolutely nothing will save you, not the nights you end up wasting waiting for something grand to happen, not the mornings where coffee has no taste and you wake up knowing the day will not be a blast, not the plans and schemes you write down on your imaginary flipchart to make the world go round. You end up stuck, alone and in the disparate points of chaos that drag you down, you have to come up with something to save yourself. Then you make six impossible wishes before breakfast, start walking and working and learn to seize what you call paranormal activity when it comes true. — Ioana-Cristina Casapu

Before I fix the world, I have to fix myself. — Evan Meekins

We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives. — Indira Gandhi

For many people, myself included, the end of the world is happening all the time! It is a form of criticality that paradoxically gives us hope for change and improvement. — Douglas Coupland

We had the great depression, we had two world wars, we had the flu epidemic. We had oil shock. We had all these terrible things happen. But something about the American system unleashed more and of a potential to human beings over that hundred years so that we had a seven for one improvement in - there's never been any - I mean, you have centuries where if you've got a 1 percent improvement, then it's something. So we've got a great system. And we've got more productive capacity now than we ever have. — Howard Warren Buffett

Life will either shrink or expand based on your decision to have courage. — Shannon L. Alder

What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table. — H.L. Mencken

Manage me, I am a mess, swept under the rug of yesterday's home improvement, a whimsical urge tossed aside for the easy reassurance of home and comfort. I am the photograph tucked away as a book-mark, in a book left half unread, once reopened to find memories crawling back into peripheral sight, faded, creased and lonely. I long to be admired, long to be held, torn and laughed at, laughed with, like a distant relative or an old friend breathing in their last breath. I missed the moment when time collapsed and memory was erased, replaced by finicky social experiments, lost in the blur of intoxication, sucked through multi-colored bendy-straws, making way for a spinning world where hub-caps stood still, but our vision didn't. If I could leave you with only one thing, it would be small, foldable, and made from trees, with a few careless words, scribbled in blue; Take a minute to learn me, take a moment to love me, because I need your love to live,and without it, I am nothing. — Alex Gaskarth

The world of books is a heavenly paradise. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve. — Alexander Smith

I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others. — John Lubbock

The great proliferation of museums in the nineteenth century was a product of the marriage of the exhibition as a way of awakening intelligent interest in the visitor with the growth of collections that was associated with empire and middle-class affluence. Attendance at museums was as much associated with moral improvement as with explanation of the human or natural world. — Richard Fortey

Liberate yourself from unconstructive beliefs forced upon you by others for imprisonment sake. Allow into this space a new-fangled reality which warrant viewpoints increasing a new understanding. — Michaelson Williams

Mastery of impulse is achieved through taking pauses during life's contrasting situations. Mastery of impulse is about developing strong willpower that can be used to redirect the flow of energy in any situation. Mastery of impulse is about responding to the world with a sense of reason and peace. — Alaric Hutchinson

Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige
while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry? — Socrates

All thought is created, therefore we are all creators of whatever world we live in. — Michael Arndt

Part of abandoning the all-or-nothing mentality is allowing yourself room for setbacks. We are bound to have lapses on the road to health and wellness, but it is critical that we learn how to handle small failures positively so that we can minimize their long-term destructive effects. One setback is one setback - it is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of your journey toward a better you. — Jillian Michaels

When a woman embraces her inner witch, she finds new strength. She is overtaken by true serenity. She creates order where there was none before. Her eyes have now been opened. — Dacha Avelin

There is plenty of other evidence, however, that the nominal conversion of the Roman Empire to the Christian religion had effected no visible improvement in the common morals. The world was worse rather than better. Out of its besetting temptations men fled to save their souls. They fled from the world, which in the first century was believed by the Christians to be doomed, and liable to be destroyed by divine fire before the end of the year, and which in the fourth century was believed by the Christians to be damned: it belonged to the devil. They fled also from the church, which they accused of secularity and of hypocrisy. Many of the monks were laymen, who in deep disgust had forsaken the services and sacraments. They said their own prayers and sought God in their own way, asking no aid from priests. They were men who had resolved never to go to church again. — George Hodges

I live in such a sweet world in the world of 'Home Improvement' that I tend to be drawn to stuff that's really on the other end of the spectrum entirely. — Patricia Richardson

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable? — Seth Godin

In our secular world, we no longer see eternal paradise as a carrot at the end of the stick of life, but try to cram as much as possible into our relatively short time on the planet instead. This is, of course, a futile endeavour, doomed to failure. It is tempting to interpret the modern epidemics of depression and burnout as the individual's response to the unbearable nature of constant acceleration. The decelerating individual - who slows down instead of speeding up, and maybe even stops completely - seems out of place in a culture characterised by manic development, and may be interpreted pathologically (i.e. diagnosed as clinically depressed). — Svend Brinkmann

Improve your business, your life, your relationships, your finances and your health. When you do the whole world improves. — Mark Victor Hansen

Your 'Ideal Parallel World' must be so grand that if you told it to 99% of your friends, they would laugh - some because they would think you were joking and some because they would think the goal impossible. — Kevin Michel

Though you may feel that you cannot improve the world, you can always improve yourself. In doing so, the world becomes a better place. — John Bruna

The night! When the outside world is hiding in darkness, you have to turn on the light within in order to see where you put your steps. — Irina Serban