Quotes About Progress

Focus too closely on the goal you haven't accomplished, and you'll fail to notice the victories you achieve along the way.

Not at all,' said Dom Cristão. 'I think we've taken a step toward something truly magnificent. But humankind almost never forgives true greatness.

There is nothing that doesn't decay. Some things decay more slowly than others, that's all.

The difference between science fiction and fantasy…is simply this, science fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees.

How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.

People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.

You just live in the place you're in, you don't worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here's where you've got to find a way

See these protrusions here, here, and here. That's tech.

Maybe not a home. Maybe that won't come until later. But I believe it will come, Mar. With your brains in this operation, how could it not?" Edimar

But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire.

The trouble was, innovation never resulted in victory over the long term. It was too easy for the enemy to imitate and improve on your innovations.

who had already taken humanity a step further than it had ever gone before.

Those two people in the back of the boat, he felt kind of sorry for them. They still lived in the drowned city, they belonged down there, and the fact that they couldn't go there broke their hearts. But not Deaver. His city wasn't even built yet. His city was tomorrow.

Peregrinos viajeros hacia el altar de la inteligencia

The human race has always produced a vast surplus of human beings and of wealth, and it has used up almost all of it either on stupid monuments like the pyramids or on brutal, bloody, pointless wars. We want you to unite the world so that this waste can finally stop.

Human is human," said Issib. "But civilized—that's the gift of the Oversoul. Civilization without self-destruction.

What if the first homo sapiens had felt that way? We'd all still be neanderthals, and when the Buggers came they would have blasted us all to bits and that would be that." "We didn't evolve from neanderthals," said Bean. "Well, it's a good thing we have that little fact squared away," said Petra.

Everything everybody does is a waste of time, until it isn't

The limbic node deep in her brain didn't understand that she no longer lived in a tree, no longer had to panic when she felt herself to be falling.

Their young go through a helpless grub stage, too, which lasts longer than some of them think.

History is an omelet. The eggs are already broken.

The story is nothing like what you first thought it would be. But so what? It's better - richer, deeper, truer - than the original idea. The idea did its work: it got you thinking. After that, if you feel bound to stick to it no matter what, that idea becomes a ball and chain that you drag with you through the whole process.

La naturaleza no puede hacer evolucionar a las especies que no tienen un deseo de supervivencia.

People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world." "What the hell, maybe they can.