Quotes About Progress

Keep marching boys and girls. Keep marching

I think in some ways it's like that for all of us, living with the ghosts of things that used to be, or never were. We're all of us haunted by yesterday, and we got no choice but to keep marching into our tomorrows. Keep marching, boys and girls. Keep marching.

In any event, there was no "fall" into "Dark Ages." Instead, once freed of the bondage of Rome, Europe separated into hundreds of independent "statelets."16 In many of these societies progress and increased production became profitable, and that ushered in "one of the great innovative eras of mankind," as technology was developed and put into use "on a scale no civilization had previously known.

For example, at the fall of Rome there was very extensive slavery everywhere in Europe; by the time of the "Renaissance" it was long gone.

An additional indication of economic growth in ancient Greece comes from the major increases in the average size of Greek houses: in the eighth century BC it was 53 square meters; by the sixth century BC it had grown to 122 square meters; and by the fifth century BC it was 325 square meters.54

The truth is that not only did Christianity not impede the rise of science; it was essential to it, which is why science arose only in the Christian West!

the Romans knew of the watermill but made nearly no use of it, continuing to rely on muscle power to grind their flour.20 The Ottoman Empire prohibited the mechanical clock, and so did the Chinese.

Humans will tend to adopt and retain those elements of culture that appear to produce "better" results, while those that appear to be less rewarding will tend to be discarded.

As the distinguished medievalist Warren Hollister (1930–1997) put it in his presidential address to the Pacific Historical Association, "to my mind, anyone who believes that the era that witnessed the building of Chartres Cathedral and the invention of parliament and the university was 'dark' must be mentally retarded—or at best, deeply, deeply, ignorant."60

that there was no scientific revolution, only the culmination of normal scientific progress over several centuries and, moreover, that science arose only in Christian Europe because only medieval Europeans believed that science was possible and desirable.

faith in progress was fundamental to western Christianity. As for Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine East, it prohibited both clocks and pipe organs from its churches.51

As the distinguished medievalist Warren Hollister (1930–1997) put it in his presidential address to the Pacific Historical Association, "to my mind, anyone who believes that the era that witnessed the building of Chartres Cathedral and the invention of parliament and the university was 'dark' must be mentally retarded—or at best, deeply, deeply, ignorant.

The reason so many innovations and inventions were abandoned or even outlawed in China had to do with Confucian opposition to change on grounds that the past was greatly superior.

the truly fundamental basis for the rise of the West was an extraordinary faith in reason and progress that was firmly rooted in Christian theology, in the belief that God is the rational creator of a rational universe.

For there is another truth: to the extent that other cultures have failed to adopt at least major aspects of Western ways, they remain backward and impoverished.

The Mormon definition of life makes the earthly sojourn basically an educative process. Knowledge is necessary to mastery, and the way to deification is through mastery, for not only does education aid man in fulfilling present tasks, it advances him in his eternal progress.

Russians like the rest of us prefer to believe that their history has progressed in a straight and positive line. They explain away troubling events such as brutal reigns of Ivan the Terrible or Stalin as necessary stages on the path to greatness.

By the time you've learned it all, by the time you're really proficient, you're almost too old to go on catching.

so that age and subsequent generation always go on destroying and spoiling what went before:

But even in the worst of such circumstances, people can't move forward if they just sit around feeling powerless and blaming others for their misery.

Remember, getting stuck in the victim cycle is not bad, it's just not effective. It keeps you from getting results.

The "Solve It" Question When taking the Solve It step, you should ask: What else can I do? Asking this over and over is the key to making progress. Repeatedly asking, What else can I do? forces you to drill down through any obstacles to find solutions, solutions that are often buried deep in the rich soil of innovation and creativity, solutions that almost always lurk below the surface of your easygoing, everyday, even routine way of thinking.

Feedback is oxygen. It's lifeblood. We can't grow and develop without it.

Every successful journey Above The Line begins by asking a single question: What else can I do to achieve the result I want?