Quotes About Progress

It (modernization) is just another jungle closing in.

You know, he added reflectively, we've got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we'd had to modernise a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bicameral legislature, proportional representation, women's suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the press, referendums . . . What is all that? asked the Emperor. Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern.

Relative advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes.

Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use.

Trialability is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis.

Innovations that are perceived by individuals as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and less complexity will be adopted more rapidly than other innovations.

The more we know about how to do something, the harder it is to learn how to do it differently

Ryan and Gross (1943) found that every one of their Iowa farmer respondents adopted hybrid seed corn by first trying it on a partial basis.

An important factor regarding the adoption rate of an innovation is its compatibility with the values, beliefs, and past experiences of individuals in the social system.

We conceptualize five main steps in the innovation-decision process: (1) knowledge, (2) persuasion, (3) decision, (4) implementation, and (5) confirmation.

These were not just Mao's mistakes, they were all our mistakes. Many of us made mistakes; we lacked experience and had poor judgment." He added, "We are very poor. We are very backward. We have to recognize that. We have a lot to do, a long way to go and a lot to learn.

In his pursuit of economic modernization, Deng liked to say that he was groping for stones as he crossed the river.

You used to be entertaining before you started to write.

it was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being

It eluded us then, but that's no matter —tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning——

Makes sense, doesn't it?  They're investing a lot in their students.

Truth can shrink and fancy can grow much in five centuries." "You really think it takes that long?" Woermann said, taking in a final survey of the pass before he turned away. It can happen in a matter of a few years.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Given a decent start any girl can beat a man nowadays.

Così continuamo a remare, barche contro corrente, risospinti senza posa nel passato.

A man does not recover from such jolts-- he becomes a different person and, eventually, the new person finds new things to care about.