Quotes About Progress

The Myth of Progress teaches that science and technology will empower individuals, unencumbered by limits imposed by religion and tradition, to realize their desires.

Now is next to nothing compared to where I've been.

I'm not the first man or the last who had a thirst to leave the past.

The journey back is always longer than the forward run.

I love change, I need it.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's a valid part of any endeavour, not just writing.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.

the first scientists and the first mathematicians.

The conceptual shift that made it possible was even simpler than the application of binary mathematics to electrical circuits.

The basic technology of writing had been known for at least two thousand years already—nothing new about that.

on all sides during the 1060s:

a new centre of power and wealth has been making its mark farther north, and closer to the Aegean

something the Byzantines had never managed to do.

Trithemius' concern for conservation was rare, indeed, and is a lesson to modern library managers who discard printed volumes, believing that e-books are the only way of the future.

Sometimes what appears to be a setback is God's mode of elevation.

it was not always war with its urgent necessities that could pull people together and turn a vision into a practical project.

at least a glimmer of hope that man can, if he will try, heal himself rather than destroy himself.

do with aviation again

Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable--the rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars.

That new technologies and techniques would be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships--although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies.

IN 1710, THE ENGLISH FREETHINKER Thomas Woolston (1670–1731) expressed his confidence that religion would vanish by 1900.1 Voltaire (1695–1778) thought this much too pessimistic and predicted that religion would be gone from the Western world within the next fifty years—by about 1810.

Science arose in the West—and only in the West—precisely because the Judeo-Christian conception of God encouraged and even demanded this pursuit.

In addition, since they were committed to reasoning about God, the Jews were quick to embrace the Greek concern for valid reasoning. What emerged was an image of God as not only eternal and immutable but also as conscious, concerned, and rational. The early Christians fully accepted this image of God. They also added and emphasized the proposition that our knowledge of God and of his creation is progressive. Faith in both reason and progress were essential to the rise of the West.

Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past. At least in principle, if not always in fact, Christian doctrines could always be modified in the name of progress as demonstrated by reason.