Quotes About Progress

We're all doing the best we can with the understanding, knowledge, and awareness we have.

Impatience is only another form of resistance. It is resistance to learning and to changing. When

old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," is so true. It doesn't mean beat yourself up and try the same old way again. It means recognize your error and try another way — until you learn to do it correctly.

When we set standards that are much too high for where we are at this moment, standards we cannot possibly achieve right now, then we will always fail.

I am releasing the old and making room for the new.

Sometimes when we try to release a pattern, the whole situation seems to get worse for a while. This is not a bad thing. It is a sign that the situation is beginning to move. Our affirmations are working, and we need to keep going.

This book should be sent to the White House, and to our earnest Attorney General, and to everyone in this country able to read—which may, however, alas, be a most despairing statement. We love—the white Americans, I mean—the notion of the little woman behind the great man: perhaps one day, Louise Meriwether will give us her version of What Every Woman Knows.

while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

The fault is here, but so is the solution. That's the grace.

And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, filled with old books and dusty old thoughts.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up.

We can all fall," said the abbot. "But perhaps not as hard and not as fast and not as far as someone who spends his life on the ascent.

Yes, I do. The ones who aren't growing and evolving, who are standing still. They're the ones who rarely got better.' 'Yes, that was it,' said Gamache. 'They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.' 'Ben,' said Peter.

An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.

Like a ship changing course. It might take a while to get to port, but at least it was going in the right direction.

Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it's true. We don't build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.

It smelled of the past, of a time before computers, before information was "Googled" and "blogged." Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge.

truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.

Not everyone makes the boat, she thought.

There is no way either would get into their wedding clothes. But they'd grown in other ways as well, and Gamach figured it was a good deal. If life meant growth in all directions, it was fine with him.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

He took her in his arms and kissed her, feeling her soft body beneath his coat. They'd both swelled since they'd first met. There was no way either would get into their wedding clothes. But they'd grown in other ways as well, and Gamache figured it was a good deal. If life meant growth in all directions, it was fine with him.

I sometimes think we're a rowboat society." "A what?" asked Jean. "A rowboat. It's why we do things like that." He jerked his head toward the window and the dot on the river. "It's why Québec is so perfectly preserved. It's why we're all so fascinated with history. We're in a rowboat. We move forward, but we're always looking back.