Quotes about Progress

Stagnation and inactivity bring spiritual death.

Many people are just waking to the reality that unlimited expansion, what we call progress, is not possible in this world, and maybe looking to monks (who seek to live within limitations) as well as rural Dakotans (whose limitations are forced upon them by isolation and a harsh climate) can teach us how to live more realistically. These unlikely people might also help us overcome the pathological fear of death and the inability to deal with sickness and old age that plague American society.

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

The Future… something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Time and tides wait for none

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.

Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.

Democracy is not a tearing down; it is a building up. It does not denial of the divine right of kings; it asserts the divine right of all men.