Quotes About Progress

Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Error is the price we pay for progress.

The art of progress is to reserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of a defeat; but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

A science that hesitates to forget its founders is lost.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Without adventure, civilization is in full decay.

Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.

Faraday was asked: "What is the use of this discovery?" He answered: "What is the use of a child - it grows to be a man.

Science is a river with two sources, the practical source and the theoretical source.

We all know Aesop's fable of the dog who dropped a piece of meat to grasp at its reflection in the water. We must not, however, judge too severely of error. In the initial stages of mental progress, error in symbolic reference is the discipline which promotes imaginative freedom.

the major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur

In some measure or other, progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious.

It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur :—like unto an arrow in the hand of a child.

Whether they will or no, Americans must begin to look outward.

Some spent years undermining Pfeiffer's theory, and others—among them many of the most brilliant scientists of the era—took off after other alleged villains, spending untold thousands of man-hours in the crucially important but thankless task of proving themselves wrong.

The "silly" question is the first intimation of some totally new development

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.