PROGRESS QUOTES
quotations about progress
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
attributed, Edgewalkers: People and Organizations That Take Risks, Build Bridges, and Break New Ground
The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"What I Believe", Red Emma Speaks
There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.
BRUCE LEE
attributed, The Art of Expressing the Human Body
Little by little, a little becomes a lot.
ANONYMOUS
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Thoughts and Adventures
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
KHALIL GIBRAN
The Madman: His Parables & Poems
Those who look forward to a period of continuous and, so to speak, inevitable progress, are bound to assign some more solid reason for their convictions than a merely empirical survey of the surface lessons of history.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
A Fragment on Progress
The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Progress always involves risks. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.
FREDERICK B. WILCOX
attributed, The Federal Accountant, 1975
There are only two options: make progress or make excuses.
ANONYMOUS
The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you've come.
IAN KNABEL
attributed, Inspirably
Speculation and the exploration of ideas beyond what we know with certainty are what lead to progress.
LISA RANDALL
New York Times, September 18, 2005
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
FRANK ZAPPA
interview, Rampike, 1990
I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.
ANONYMOUS
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
Under the sublime law of progress, the present outgrows the past. The great heart of humanity is heaving with the hopes of a brighter day. All the higher instincts of our nature prophesy its approach; and the best intellects of the race are struggling to turn that prophecy into fulfilment.
HORACE MANN
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man
Every step of progress which the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake.
WENDELL PHILLIPS
speech on the rights of women at the convention at Worcester, October 15-16, 1851
If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
State of the Union Address, January 9, 1959
We have a stake in one another ... what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and ... if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this Earth.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, December 1, 2006
Life doesn't count for much unless you're willing to do your small part to leave our children -- all of our children -- a better world. Even if it's difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don't get very far in our lifetime.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, June 15, 2008