Quotes About Progress

People fail forward to success.

It is not easy, but you have to be willing to make mistakes. And the earlier you make those mistakes, the better.

I have called the principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved by the term of Natural Selection.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.

"The tradition of the new." Yesterday's avant-gard-experiment is today's chic and tomorrow's cliche.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.

To stumble twice against the same stone, is a proverbial disgrace.

Men trip not on mountains, they stumble on stones.

There are two kinds of fools: one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good'; the other says, 'This is new, therefore it is better.'

Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop.

People call me an optimist, but I'm really an appreciator ... years ago, I was cured of a badly infected finger with antibiotics when once my doctor could have recommended only a hot water soak or, eventually, surgery.... When I was six years old and had scarlet fever, the first of the miracle drugs, sulfanilamide, saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and photocopiers ... I appreciate where we've come from.

It matters very little whether a man is discontented in the name of pessimism or progress, if his discontent does in fact paralyse his power of appreciating what he has got.

If I wanted to become a tramp, I would seek information and advice from the most successful tramp I could find. If I wanted to become a failure, I would seek advice from men who have never succeeded. If I wanted to succeed in all things, I would look around me for those who are succeeding, and do as they have done.

The present is great with the future

Before I was a genius I was a drudge.

Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world!

Something must happen!

Why always, "not yet"? Do flowers in spring say, "not yet"?

We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?

As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come.

The way to get ahead is to start now.

The first step is the hardest.