Human Progress Quotes

The why is what makes journalism an adult game. The why is what makes policy coherent and useful. The why is what transforms bureaucrats and foot soldiers and political leaders into viable instruments of rational and affirmative change. The why is everything and without it, the very suggestion of human progress becomes a cosmic joke. ~ David Simon

The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

As a general rule, man strives to avoid labor. Love for work is not at all an inborn characteristic: it is created by economic pressure and social education. One may even say that man is a fairly lazy animal. It is on this quality, in reality, that is founded to a considerable extent all human progress; because if man did not strive to expend his energy economically, did not seek to receive the largest possible quantity of products in return for a small quantity of energy, there would have been no technical development or social culture. ~ Leon Trotsky

We could not be further from ballooning's established tropes: freedom, spiritual exaltation, human progress. Redon's eternally open eye is deeply unsettling. The eye in the sky; God's security camera. And that lumpish human head invites us to conclude that the colonisation of space doesn't purify the colonisers; all that has happened is that we have brought our sinfulness to a new location. ~ Julian Barnes

Do not stand in the way of the next step in human progress. No one living who reads the signs of the times but realizes that woman suffrage must come. We are working for the ballot as a matter of justice and as a step for human betterment. ~ Carrie Chapman Catt

The dynamic nature of knowledge is reflected in human progress and technological achievements. ~ Eraldo Banovac

This is the very basis of inspiration and friendship, both of which are, in essence, spiritual connections. No two people are exactly the same, though they may share fragments of each other's personality. Some may feel so uncannily connected as to be kindred spirits, watching the world through different eyes but hearts aligned, the canvas of consciousness cast in common colors, struggling to express the same thoughts and gleefully snapping their fingers when the other puts it just right, finishing each other's sentences on page, screen, or scroll - across the decades, centuries, millennia. Great men and women influence "a number of people," even after they die. People will take up their mantle and continue the endless work of human progress. By giving new voice to the echoes fading in time, we elevate both ourselves and the person from whom we draw inspiration. Our souls interpenetrate through the broken chains of eternity, and through us, they live once again. ~ Shmuel Pernicone

Technology transforms people's lives. From mitigating poverty to simplifying processes, ending corruption to providing better services, Technology is omnipresent. It has become the single-most important instrument of human progress. ~ Narendra Modi

According to the history of human progress, it is disobedience to nature that has constituted that progress. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege ~ Sarah Dollard (Doctor Who)

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics. ~ Tony Blair

Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race. ~ H.L. Mencken

The study of history reveals that human progress has not been continuous and regular, but intermittent and spasmodic, often depending upon apparently accidental causes. It is difficult to get a cross-section view of society at any given stage. ~ Charles A. Beard

Perhaps all human progress stems from the tension between two basic drives: to have just what everyone else has and to have what no one has. ~ Judith Stone

Progress begins when you liberate your mind from the shackles of your ingrained tendencies of authoritarianism – the tendencies of greed – the tendencies of hatred, rage and lust. ~ Abhijit Naskar

To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. ~ Albert Einstein

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force. ~ Maria Montessori

The conviction grows in me that we shall discover laws of personality and behavior which are as significant for human progress or human understanding as the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. ~ Carl R. Rogers

The capitalists are the brains of civilization, because they supply the entire fabric of which all education, enlightenment and human progress consists. ~ Napoleon Hill

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress. ~ Wynton Marsalis

Specialization and organization are the basis of human progress. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic view of life on which both systems are based is identical. As long as we only talk about economic classes, profit, salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth and goods, then we are not even close to what is essential. ~ Julius Evola

WHY PARADIGMS MATTER

Ideas drive results. People's beliefs drive their actions.

Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity.

Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation.

As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits.
In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed.

Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it), on the other. p. 7. ~ Patricia E. West

Human progress is not an uninterrupted march forward. It is a slow and devious movement with haltings and twistings. The pathway of man ascends and descends, wanders off into mazes. At times the trail seems to lose itself in the wilderness of human passion and folly. But inch by inch it goes forward with halting steps. ~ Joseph Alexander Leighton

Free enterprise capitalism has been the most powerful creative system of social cooperation and human progress ever conceived, but its perception and its role in society have been distorted. ~ John Mackey

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable ... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pyre the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as clear or present as sickness or health, life or death? ~ Howard Zinn

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. ~ David Marshall Brooks

To gauge the understanding and insight that metaphysics provides is to ask whether, in the final analysis, it helps us to cope with our world and harmonize our existence with nature, humanity, and ourselves, and leads to greater freedom and self-realization. Metaphysics is only the beginning. The end is human progress. ~ Rudolph Rummel

This was the invention of modern American philanthropy as we know it. The idea of systematizing giving to achieve human progress was the true innovation of John D. Rockefeller, and ultimately the Rockefeller Foundation's legacy. ~ Judith Rodin

People used to think that learning to read evidenced human progress; they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory; they condemn countries with a large proportion of illiterates; they think that reading is a road to freedom. All this is debatable, for the important thing is not to be able to read, but to understand what one reads, to reflect on and judge what one reads. Outside of that, reading has no meaning (and even destroys certain automatic qualities of memory and observation). But to talk about critical faculties and discernment is to talk about something far above primary education and to consider a very small minority. The vast majority of people, perhaps 90 percent, know how to read, but do not exercise their intelligence beyond this. They attribute authority and eminent value to the printed word, or, conversely, reject it altogether. As these people do not possess enough knowledge to reflect and discern, they believe - or disbelieve - in toto what they read. And as such people, moreover, will select the easiest, not the hardest, reading matter, they are precisely on the level at which the printed word can seize and convince them without opposition. They are perfectly adapted to propaganda. ~ Jacques Ellul

Bring all your power out my friend, and throw away such Gods, such doctrines, such institutions, that impede in the path of human progress. ~ Abhijit Naskar

There is the story in every man's heart of human progress. I believe every one of us knows that his major job on Earth is to make some contributions, no matter how small, to this inexorable movement of human progress. ~ King Vidor

We have embarked globally on a path of unsustainable development. Our lifestyles, the way we produce goods and services, are all part of a system that is completely unsustainable. I see solutions to climate change leading to a much larger philosophical shift in the way human society develops. We need a new matrix to define what human progress is. ~ Rajendra K. Pachauri

The march of human progress seemed mainly a matter of getting over that initial shock of being here. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

We are a stupid species with smart phones. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those who professed themselves unable to believe in the reality of human progress ought to cheer themselves up, as the students under examination had conceivably been cheered up, by a short study of the Middle Ages. The hydrogen bomb, the South African Government, Chioang Kaidick, Senator McCarthy himself, would then seem a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages ~ Kingsley Amis

Religions, creeds, drama, poetry, games, folklore, folk tales, mythology, moral and aesthetic codes' elements of the political and juridical life affirming a personality's value , freedom and tolerance ; philosophy, theater, galleries , museums, libraries-this is the unbroken line of human culture, the first act of which has been played in heaven between God and man. That is climbing the holy mountain , the top of which remains unreachable' marching through darkness by means of the blazing candle carried by man.
Civilization is the continuation of technical rather than spiritual progress in the same way that Darwinian evolution is the continuation of biological rather than human progress. Civilization represents the development of the potential forces that existed in our less developed ancestors. It is a continuation of the natural , mechanical elements-that is, of the unconscious, senseless elements of our existence. Therefore, civilization is neither good nor bad in itself. Man must create civilization , just as he must breathe or eat. It is an expression of necessity and of our lack of freedom. Culture ,on the contrary, is the ever-present feeling of choice and expression of human freedom. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous ... The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge. ~ H.L. Mencken

How great seems human progress when we consider where it began, and how insignificant, when we contemplate the goals for which itstrives. ~ Franz Grillparzer

God is dead," wrote Mainländer, "and His death was the life of the world." Once the
great individuation had been accomplished, the momentum of its creator's selfannihilation would continue in a piecemeal fashion until nothing remained standing. And those who committed suicide, as did Mainländer, would only be following God's example. Furthermore, the Will-to-live that Schopenhauer argued activates the world - a concept logically developed but only within a mythological framework - was revised by his disciple Mainländer as evidence not of a movement of a tortured life within beings, but as a deceptive cover for an underlying death wish in all things to burn themselves out as hastily as possible in the fires of becoming . . . or begoing, as it were. In this light, the raging of human progress is thus shown to be a mightily apparent symptom of a downfall into extinction that has just gotten underway. ~ Thomas Ligotti

The first idea is that human progress is exponential (that is, it expands by repeatedly multiplying by a constant) rather than linear (that is, expanding by repeatedly adding a constant). Linear versus exponential: Linear growth is steady; exponential growth becomes explosive. ~ Ray Kurzweil

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race. ~ Don Marquis

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance. ~ Edward Gibbon

Yearning for the seemingly impossible is the path to human progress. ~ Bryant H. McGill

In this way Byron's take on the human condition becomes closer to the fractured collage of 20th century existentialists: a conflicted human nature posited within a harsh and painful environment where self-less compassion is essential to human progress, but is rewarded with torture and suffering. ~ George Gordon Byron

Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress. ~ John Clapham

In fact, technology has been the story of human progress from as long back as we know. In 100 years people will look back on now and say, 'That was the Internet Age.' And computers will be seen as a mere ingredient to the Internet Age. ~ Reed Hastings

Voltaire once wrote, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." Sir Francis Bacon added, "A prudent question is one-half of wisdom." Indira Gandhi concluded that "the power to question is the basis of all human progress." Great questions are clearly the quickest path to great answers. ~ Gary Keller

The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human progress. ~ George W. Bush

Energy is necessary for economic growth, for a better quality of life, and for human progress. ~ Mac Thornberry

Nothing holds back human progress as frequently as the misbelief that the words 'impossible' and 'improbable' are synonyms. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Woe to him who becomes useless to human progress! ~ Ernest Renan

In differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. ~ Louis D. Brandeis

So you think that zero was there waiting for us when humans came into being,like the flowers and the stars? You should have more respect for human progress. We made the zero, through great pain and struggle. ~ Yoko Ogawa

The power to question is the basis of all human progress. ~ Indira Gandhi

A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress. ~ Ayn Rand

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration. ~ H.L. Mencken

Whereas liberalism merged with the milder versions of nationalism to protect the unique experiences of each human community, evolutionary humanists such as Hitler identified particular nations as the engines of human progress, and concluded that these nations ought to bludgeon or even exterminate anyone standing in their way. It should be remembered, though, that Hitler and the Nazis represent only one extreme version of evolutionary humanism. Just as Stalin's gulags do not automatically nullify every socialist idea and argument, so too the horrors of Nazism should not blind us to whatever insights evolutionary humanism might offer. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Free-enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to something even greater. ~ John Mackey

It seems more than a little patronizing for Westerners to lament the loss of the good old days when life in the Khumbu was so much simpler and more picturesque. Most of the people who live in this rugged country seem to have no desire to be severed from the modern world or the untidy flow of human progress. The last thing Sherpas want is to be preserved as specimens in an anthropological museum. ~ Jon Krakauer

Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. Those that are enlightened before the others are condemned to pursue that light in spite of the others. ~ Christopher Columbus

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own. ~ H.L. Mencken

True human progress is based less on the inventive mind than on the conscience of such men as Brandeis.
~ Albert Einstein ~ Albert Einstein

Motivation is the essence of human progress. ~ Yahya Mohamed

If human progress had been merely a matter of leadership we should be in Utopia today. ~ Thomas Reed

We are saved not by what we can do or accomplish but by our fealty to revolt, our steadfastness to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, and those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the powerful. If we remain true to these moral imperatives, we win. And I am enough of an idealist to believe that the struggle to live the moral life is worth it. Chris Hedges, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress ~ Amy Friedman

Progress is the attraction that moves humanity. ~ Marcus Garvey

You have been blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Make sure that someone stands on yours as well. This is the only way of human progress. ~ Chris Matakas

Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands. ~ H.L. Mencken

War, and the preparation for war, are the two greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence and poverty. ~ Oscar Arias

Von Neumann makes two important observations here: acceleration and singularity. The first idea is that human progress is exponential (that is, it expands by repeatedly multiplying by a constant) rather than linear (that is, expanding by repeatedly adding a constant). ~ Ray Kurzweil

I am firmly convinced that, in future years, China and India will join hands in playing a more active role in maintaining peace and stability in the region and the world at large and make due contribution to the cause of human progress and development. ~ Li Peng

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached - their faith in human progress - must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith - if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace - then we lose what is best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass. ~ Barack Obama

In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say 'See!' to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply 'Here!' to a body's cry of 'Where?' till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a close interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; part and counterpart wandered independently about the earth in the stupidest manner for a while, till the late time came. Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes -- what was called a strange destiny. ~ Thomas Hardy

Health in all lands is among the indispensable guarantees of human progress. ~ Helen Keller

During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art. ~ Herbert Spencer

The need has finally arisen, for the humans to stand up, in order to make humanity come true, otherwise, we will end up as yet another dying species - and unlike other animal species, we will not die probably of starvation or sickness, rather we will die due to our intellectual stupidity - due to the unrealization of our innate humanity. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Progress means progress of all humans from all walks of life, not just the progress in science, progress in technology or progress in philosophy. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Human progress planned as alternatives (to God's plan) introduce in justice, evil and violence rising against the divine plan of justice and salvation. And despite transitory and apparent successes, they are reduced to simple machinations destined to dissolution and failure. ~ Pope John Paul II

All human progress is preceded by new questions ~ Tony Robbins

Alcoholism, the opium habit and tobaccoism are a trio of poison habits which have been weighty handicaps to human progress during the last three centuries. In the United States, the subtle spell of opium has been broken by restrictive legislation; the grip of the rum demon has been loosened by the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution, but the tobacco habit still maintains its strangle-hold and more than one hundred million victims of tobaccoism daily burn incense to the smoke god. ~ John Harvey Kellogg

As an element in human progress, the right of private property, in importance, has taken first and almost only place in the current systems of law and of political economy. While admitting its great importance, we cannot conceal the fact that the writers on those subjects have wholly failed to distinguish between its use and its abuse, or to recognize its rational and equitable limits. ~ Joshua K. Ingalls

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. ~ Ronald Reagan

The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress. ~ Bertrand Russell

Be skeptic, be doubtful, be rebellious towards every single dogma of the society. Only then there will be hope of progress for humanity. ~ Abhijit Naskar

There are no limits to growth and human progress
when men and women are free to follow their dreams. ~ Ronald Reagan

What is clear is that, to date, computer technology has served to strengthen Technopoly's hold, to make people believe that technological innovation is synonymous with human progress. ~ Neil Postman

The Christian image of God is that of a rational being who believes in human progress. ~ Rodney Stark

Private property in the instruments of production is an institutional device both for dispersing power and for securing effective organization of production. The only simple property system is that of a slave society with a single slave owner - which, significantly, is the limiting case of despotism and of monopoly. Departure from such a system is a fair measure of human progress. ~ Henry Calvert Simons

Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

One human's despair is all humans' despair - one human's joy is all humans' joy - one human's accomplishments are all humans' accomplishments. Such should be the genuine thinking of a civilized and conscientious human, if there is to be peace and harmony in the world. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Freedom is the core of all human progress. It believes that nothing's given to us, but if you're willing to work hard. If you're willing to compete, the American dream is there for you. ~ Connie Mack IV

Imagination is what has driven human progress since very early times. ~ Barbara Hambly

It would be well to realize that the talk of 'humane methods of warfare', of the 'rules of civilized warfare', and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes. There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing as civilized warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress… What lover of humanity can view with anything but horror the prospect of this ruthless destruction of human life. Yet this is war: war for which all the jingoes are howling, war to which all the hopes of the world are being sacrificed, war to which a mad ruling class would plunge a mad world. ~ James Connolly

Arms alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense - to protect from violent assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add to human progress. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Impossible? Utopic?
Sure!
But for how long?
Can any human endeavor be eternally impossible or utopic ?
A time factor should be integrated to every affirmation of utopia, or else the people affirming that would only be affirming that they are not the ones who can make it happen. ~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue. ~ Philip Khuri Hitti

Being satisfied to drink the dregs from the cup of human progress will not demonstrate our fitness as a people to exist alongside of others, but when of our own initiative we strike out to build industries, governments, and ultimately empires, then and only then will we as a race prove to our creator and to man in general that we are fit to survive and capable of shaping our own destiny. ~ Marcus Garvey