Quotes About Progress

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present. —Golda Meir

Vonnegut exposes the assumption that if we do change biologically, we typically think we will end up smarter in the terms in which we consider ourselves smart today. But to survive means only that we'll be smart in the context of the environment we find ourselves in. If we continue to exist, we will by definition be smarter than the versions of us that did not survive, but that intelligence won't necessarily be comparable to what we have today.

History," wrote the researchers, "is always ending today.

to be a person is to be constantly engaged in making yourself into that person

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow,Don't stop, it'll soon be here.It'll be better than before,Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

The history of any scientific concept—energy, atom, gene, cancer, memory—is one of increased differentiation and sophistication until it can be explained in a quantitative and mechanistic manner at a lower, more elemental level.

Creating never happens in those big gestures that the final product suggests in the end.

I don't need a big idea, I need 1000 small steps: 1000 steps ahead, 500 steps back, 700 steps to the right and then I will end up somewhere. So, you really have to force yourself to trust that process.

Change is tough, people don't like it, but it is necessary. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

Penicillin was as liberating for gay sex as the pill had been for straight sex.

The gay revolution began as a literary revolution.

Most straight people, and many gay people, especially those who came of age more recently, don't understand how momentous and difficult coming out was to men and women of this generation. It seems so obvious now, so banal.

Dutton, the home of Winnie the Pooh, would find a second identity as a home for gay fiction.

It's the fate of many propositions," Terry said, "to begin as heresies and end as truths. I read that somewhere, anyway.

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. (Misattributed: Actually by André Gide.)

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Change is not, then, a matter of "magical" thinking or waving a "wand"—it is about pushing ideas, building movements, and challenging the status quo.

When building something with as many moving parts as a brand-new restaurant, each small step along the way feels like a victory.

There is no squabbling so violent as that between people who accepted an idea yesterday and those who will accept the same idea tomorrow.

We know that we will never confront the exact same circumstances as previous revolutions. But we should also know that certain problems are persistent ones and that if we can't say what we would have done in the past we should not expect people to think much of our ability to face the future.

The first constitutional monarchy in the Muslim world was established in Tunis in 1861.

We learned that economic growth and environmental protection can and should go hand in hand.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

A great city is not something that should be judged by our elders... We should learn from our mistakes, not look back on them, we should use the knowledge that we have to move forward....