Social Progress Quotes

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work. ~ Tony Kushner

The social progress, order, security and peace of each country are necessarily connected with the social progress, order, security and peace of all other countries. ~ Pope John XXIII

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex. ~ Karl Marx

I wouldn't say that religion has promoted the social progress of mankind. I say that it has been a detriment to the progress of civilization, and I would also say this: that the emancipation of the mind from religious superstition is as essential to the progress of civilization as is emancipation from physical slavery. ~ Culbert Olson

A President must call on many persons
some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The study of social progress is today not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart. ~ Alfred De Vigny

A stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There could be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress. ~ John Stuart Mill

If you want to be drunk, become drunk with an idea. If you want pleasure, have pleasure from the pursuit of your passion. If you want to be indoctrinated, then be so by the natural law of humanism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.
[Address to National Press Club in Washington DC, as quoted in Freedom and Union (April 1952)] ~ Earl Warren

I was also troubled by the apparent over-confidence of a generation that has only known stability, growth and prosperity. I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it. Most of all, I hope that they will know that honest and effective government, public order and personal security, economic and social progress did not come about as the natural course of events. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Bricks could be used to promote social progress. If we could amass enough bricks to build a prison big enough to cage every citizen, then everybody would be equal. And I think our current political leadership is savvy enough to see this, and is taking steps to implement this as soon as possible. ~ Jarod Kintz

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. ~ George Henry Lewes

My daddy thought - no, he expected - that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress, depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on. ~ Wynton Marsalis

Social progress takes effect through the replacement of all institutions by new ones; and since every institution involves the recognition of the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the repudiation of an established duty at every step. ~ George Bernard Shaw

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins"
From "The Gods of the Copybook Headings ~ Rudyard Kipling

A meaningless life for a human being has none of the dignity of animal unselfconsciousness; we cannot simply eat, sleep, hunt and reproduce - we are meaning-seeking creatures. The Western world has done away with religion but not with religious impulses; we seem to need some higher purpose, some point to our lives - money and leisure, social progress, are just not enough. ~ Jeanette Winterson

It's important to remember that we all change each other's minds all the time. Any good story is a mind-altering substance. ~ Hank Green

Remember, social progress only happens when those in society's privileged classes choose to give up their status. ~ Tammy Bruce

The difference between a dictator and a true leader, is in intention. Given enough resources anybody can manipulate the minds of the masses and become their chosen authority, for the masses rarely look past the veil of the candidate's charm. And this is more evident today than ever, as a psychologically unfit misogynistic bully has swayed his way into the oval office with nothing but charm and charisma. So, basically we live in a society where a bully can become the authority of a great nation, the history of which is filled with true leaders who were the forerunners of humanitarian glory and real progress - these leaders were not simply the leaders of a country, or a party, but they were and still remain in the heart of the civilized humans as the leaders of humanity. They were the torch-bearers of egalitarianism and their light spread across the globe and touched countless lives with the warmth of humaneness. They lived among the masses but they didn't let the prejudices of the masses become their own, let alone infect the masses with more prejudices, unlike today's so-called leadership in America. They made America truly a great nation, by turning it into a symbol of liberty and acceptance, and today that very greatness is at stake, as the primitive evils of prejudices and discriminations have once again begun to creep into its backbone, through the words and actions of its very so-called leader. This is not a threat to democracy, for democracy itself at our current evolut ~ Abhijit Naskar

Legends become legends by getting lost, so that humanity doesn't. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe. ~ Lester B. Pearson

Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best. ~ Thomas Huxley

A blanket could be divided into four even parts and given to three equal people. I'd be an ideal politician, because I believe in social progress. ~ Jarod Kintz

Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included). ~ Karl Marx

The teaching of any science, for purposes of liberal education, without linking it with social progress and teaching its social significance, is a crime against the student mind. It is like teaching a child how to pronounce words but not what they mean. ~ Chris Carter

Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is
to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories
a mysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

In any war, except that for freedom from oppression, victory of any nation, is the defeat of all nations, because each war comes at the cost of lives, in the name of the same old tribal loyalty. ~ Abhijit Naskar

This state of affairs, which bodes ill for the future, causes Us great distress and anguish. But We cherish this hope: that distrust and selfishness among nations will eventually be overcome by a stronger desire for mutual collaboration and a heightened sense of solidarity. We hope that the developing nations will take advantage of their geographical proximity to one another to organize on a broader territorial base and to pool their efforts for the development of a given region. We hope that they will draw up joint programs, coordinate investment funds wisely, divide production quotas fairly, and exercise management over the marketing of these products. We also hope that multilateral and broad international associations will undertake the necessary work of organization to find ways of helping needy nations, so that these nations may escape from the fetters now binding them; so that they themselves may discover the road to cultural and social progress, while remaining faithful to the native genius of their land. ~ Pope Paul VI

The whole civilized world runs on trust - people trust journalists to provide accurate information, doctors to provide accurate treatment, scientists to provide accurate answers and solutions to unanswered questions and unsolved problems, pilots to provide safe and fast air transportation, and so on. So, the integrity of the civilized world is predicated on the integrity of the individual in their chosen field of work. Upon their sense of responsibility depends the healthy functioning of an entire species. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Women are a dynamic economic force. We represent the largest consumer market in the world and are drivers of GDP. More and more companies recognize that when they support women as customers, employees, leaders, future investors and partners, they are adopting sound business strategies and advancing social progress. ~ Melanne Verveer

If you are human, you are responsible - if you are not responsible, you are not human. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The embattled gates to equal rights indeed opened up for modern women, but I sometimes think to myself; that is not what I meant by freedom, it is only social progress. ~ Helene Deutsch

No one has ever accused Texas of being in the vanguard of social progress. This is the most macho state in the U.S. of A. By lore, legend, and fact, Texas is 'hell' on women and horses. ~ Molly Ivins

War, technology, and social progress; it seemed that the second two always came with the first. The NACA's work - more intense and ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

Common people tend to term any kind of bizarre phenomenon as "paranormal" or "supernatural". They often exaggerate it as the work of the Gods. Behind this belief is nothing but primitive ignorance. Social progress means that people must (a necessity, not a luxury) align their beliefs and behavior to new knowledge and understanding of nature. ~ Abhijit Naskar

[We] assume that social progress is like technological progress: one cannot uninvent the internal combustion engine, so how could one uninvent liberty? ~ Mark Steyn

I plan to make the case that we need to move beyond religion if we want to continue the kind of remarkable intellectual and social progress we've enjoyed since the "Enlightenment. ~ Alan Jeskin

Because the utopian's worldview was framed around moving toward this perfected future, it helped stimulate the private exertions that add up to social progress. Progress is work. People need to build things and sacrifice and have a harder life for things to get better. On its own, I don't think even the most brilliant critique stimulates that kind of effort as well as an appealing vision of the future. ~ Christine Jennings

All stains of the society are born in the mind, and so is the detergent to clean them off. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Freedom possesses many meanings. It speaks not merely in terms of political and religious liberty but also in terms of economic and social progress. ~ Robert Kennedy

The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life. - from Bhagat Singh's prison diary, p. 124 ~ Bhagat Singh

In the modern world the intelligence of public opinion is the one indispensable condition for social progress. ~ Charles William Eliot

Taking care of your own family is good, taking care of your neighbor's family is better and taking care of all the families in your neighborhood is the best. ~ Abhijit Naskar

It pains me to say, that almost all of humanity has become obsessed with the pompous and fake glory of fame, that's why the dumbest words of the famous appear wise and the wisest words of the commoner seem dumb. Such is the society you live in - such is the society we all are proud to be a part of - shame on us! ~ 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

The average Nigerian person has come to reconcile himself with the fact that his or her social progress remain essentially in his or her hands in collaboration with other fellow Nigerians and not merely relying on what government alone could provide for him or her. ~ Ibrahim Babangida

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

Class war is not the cause of social progress; it is a disease developed in the course of social progress. The cause of the disease is the inability to subsist, and the result of the disease is war. ~ Sun Yat-sen

Christians and non-Christian voters alike have become far too comfortable slinging rocks at the expense of making any real political or social progress. ~ Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

They [progressives] are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all people and societies strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

Right after women got the vote, the measure of their social progress can be seen in an advice column written by Dorthy Dix that appeared in newspapers all over the country. The woman should not merely be a domestic drudge, she said:
. . . .a man's wife is the show window where he exhibits the measure of his achievement. . . . The biggest deals are put across over luncheon tables; . . . we meet at dinner the people who can push our fortunes. . . . The woman who cultivates a circle of worthwhile people, who belongs to clubs, who makes herself interesting and agreeable. . . . is a help to her husband. ~ Howard Zinn

Every advance in social progress removes us more and more from the guidance of instinct, obliging us to depend upon reason for the assurance that our habits are really agreeable to the laws of health. ~ Emily Blackwell

Social progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business of each. ~ Henry George

Our market-intensive societies measure material progress by the increase in the volume and variety of commodities produced. And taking our cue from this sector, we measure social progress by the distribution of access to these commodities. Economics has been developed as propaganda for the takeover by large-scale commodity producers. ~ Ivan Illich

Making money for my clones, now that's what I call self-enrichment. Having all my clones working for me, working for free, and enriching me, now that's what I call social progress. Ah, but that's life, no? ~ Jarod Kintz

The making of an Atheist implies a mental stimulation and training which brings into play the primary factors of social progress. ~ Joseph McCabe

The impulse of humanity toward social progress is like the movement in the currents of a great water system, from myriad sources and under myriad circumstances and conditions, beating onward, ever onward toward its eternity, the Ocean. ~ Anna Julia Cooper

Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of the people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance. ~ John F. Kennedy

Healthy brains create a healthy society. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Acts of brutality committed by the ruling elite and systematic oppression of the weak stain every era of civilization. Ethnic wars and religious cleansing still exist in the twenty-first century. Just as insidious as state sponsored murder is the escalating economic expansion that destroys the habitat and displaces indigenous tribes' way of life under the false moniker of economic and social progress. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. ~ Robert Kennedy

If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. ~ Frederic Bastiat

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress. ~ Charles Fourier

Do not let the evil become our masters, but make the good reign upon the world. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. ~ John Dewey

Imagine, what we could achieve, if seven billion humans on earth start to think and live together as one whole family, instead of living as separate pompous tribes known as nations! ~ Abhijit Naskar

It is "humanism" that should run in the veins of the thinking humanity, not a certain gender-oriented "ism". This entire book is a treatise on gender equality, and as such, it may be hailed as a work of feminism, but it is not - it is a work of humanism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Advertising as the printed form of selling would seem ... ultimately to be justified in so far as it serves as a means of increasing legitimate human wants, as an agency of fair and economic competition in the distribution of goods, and as a stimulant to social progress. ~ Daniel Starch

An Islamic ideology capable of giving Muslims freedom, social justice and of interacting with other religions, cultures and ideologies ~ Hassan Hanafi

Third, and finally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society
but the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding. For whether he has ever studied history or current events, ethics or civics, the rules of a profession or the tools of a trade, he knows that only a respect for the law makes it possible for free men to dwell together in peace and progress. ~ John F. Kennedy

Human history is full of depressing things like colonization, disease, racism, sexism ... inventions of things which they had no idea how to handle (the atomic bomb, the Internet, the semicolon) ... And through it all there has always been some truly awful food. ~ Matt Haig

It is astonishing that critical scholarship has asked forever about the identification of these store-house cities, but without ever asking about the skewed exploitative social relationships between owner and laborers that the project exhibits. The store-house cities are an ancient parallel to the great banks and insurance houses where surplus wealth is kept among us. That surplus wealth, produced by the cheap labor of peasants, must now be protected from the peasants by law and by military force. ~ Walter Brueggemann

We also know that ISIS is recruiting who are not in those databases. So of course, we're going to miss them. And then we now learn that DHS says, "No, we can't check their social media." ~ Carly Fiorina

For a man is not only a biological but a social product, and the social environment of individuals in the process of education, is the home. Scientific pedagogy will seek in vain to better the new generation if it does not succeed in influencing also the environment within which this new generation grows! I ~ Maria Montessori

I do not think you can push public expenditure significantly above 60 per cent and maintain the values of a plural society with adequate freedom of choice. We are here close to one of the frontiers of social democracy ~ Roy Jenkins

Before he went away, he had heard all about the self-made girl, and there was something in the picture that strongly impressed him. She was possible doutbless only in America; American life had smoothed the way for her. She was not fast, nor emancipated, nor crude, nor loud, and there wasn't in her, of necessity at least, a grain of the stuff of which the adventuress is made.
She was simply very successful, and her success was entirely personal. She hadn't been born with the silver spoon of social opportunity, she had grasped it by honest exertion. You knew her by many different signs, but chiefly, infallibly, by the appearance of her parents. It was her parents who told her story; you always saw how little her parents could have made her. Her attitude with regard to them might vary in different ways. As the great fact on her own side was that she had lifted herself from a lower social plane, done it all herself, and done it by the simple lever of her personality, it was naturally to be expected that she would leave the authors of her mere material being in the shade.
(…)
But the general characteristic of the self-made girl was that, though it was frequently understood that she was privately devoted to her kindred, she never attempted to impose them on society, and it was striking that, though in some of her manifestations a bore, she was at her worst less of a bore than they. They were almost always solemn and portentous, and they were for the most part of a d ~ Henry James

People who foster dependence on illicit drugs such as heroin are regarded among the most unscrupulous pariahs of modern civilisation. In contrast, pushers of licit drugs tend to be viewed as altruistically motivated purveyors of social good. ~ John Braithwaite

A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.

[Report to the United States Senate on his trip to Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, May 9-10 1966] ~ Robert F. Kennedy

Tweet and post softly of your brand. But carry a big stick. ~ Timi Nadela

It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P. high and a great many articulate people seemed to have a sense of high social purpose and it might have been a spring of brave hopes and national promise, but it was not, and more and more people had the uneasy apprehension that it was not. ~ Joan Didion

The truth is that as we move forward, if one side says we can't raise any taxes on anybody or any interest, and the other side says we can't cut anything, we're obviously not going to make progress on this. And our interest is in making progress on this. ~ David Axelrod

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. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Where do you learn how to act? Not at church. America is a lot more like pagan Rome than we think. We still sacrifice to objects to gain our social goals. ~ Dave Hickey

'Reasoning doesn't have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions,' said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, with Dan Sperber. 'It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.' Truth and accuracy were beside the point. ~ Ezra Klein

Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul. ~ Samuel

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom. ~ Amiri Baraka

The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white. ~ Ian McEwan

99.5 percent of the people that walk around and say they are a social media expert or guru are clowns. We are going to live through a devastating social media bubble. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

Revolutions are 90% social diarrhea. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Men will always seek gods in whose name they may perform great deeds or commit unspeakable atrocities, even when those gods are not gods but "tribal honor" or "genetic imperatives" or "social ideals" or "human
destiny" or "liberal democracy." Then again, men also kill on account of money, land, love, pride, hatred, envy, or ambition. They kill out of conviction or out of lack of conviction. Harris ~ David Bentley Hart

They did not want anything to do with me in Paris and they were right: they have gone much further than I, but I will work and I too will progress. ~ Giacomo Balla

It's not social issues I care about. ~ John McCain

The making of art is a profoundly social activity, even if it's one-on-one with some sort of ideal reader who doesn't exist. ~ August Kleinzahler

There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful. ~ Dalai Lama

Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting ~ Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes, you don't realize that something is actually a sidetrack for the story, or it takes the tension out of a scene. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

She's been, but she's coming back," he said. "I expect her every minute. Ah! there she is."

This was rather stupid of Stephen. He ought to have guessed that Lucia's second appearance was officially intended to be her first. He grasped that when she squeezed her way through the crowd and greeted him as if they had not met before that morning.

"And dearest Adele," she said. "What a crush! Tell me quickly, where are the caricatures of Pepino and me? I'm dying to see them; and when I see them no doubt I shall wish I was dead."

The light of Luciaphilism came into Adele's intelligent eyes... ~ E.F. Benson

Ethics is the new competitive environment ~ Peter Robinson

Preaching has always been the business of the Asiatics. The Western people are grand in organisation, social institutions, armies, governments, etc.; but when it comes to preaching religion, they cannot come near the Asiatic, whose business it has been all the time, and he knows it, and he does not use too much machinery. ~ Swami Vivekananda