Quotes About Progress

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

We change, whether we like it or not

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, but the kind of man that the country turns out.

Our strength grows out of our weaknesses

The flowering of civilization is the finished man, the man of sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power--the gentleman.

A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

That man is idle who can do something better.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future; the Establishment and the Movement.

Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

What we call results are beginnings.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.