Quotes about Progress

Is not the sea-brine, is not shipwreck, bitter enough to make the cup of life go down here? Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; and there are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who are so blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on precisely this kind of interchange and activity- the activity of flies about a molasses- hogshead. Very well, observes one, if men were oysters. And very well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes.

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. Philippians 3:13

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

If you went to your closet today, would you pull out the same outfit you wore 10 or 15 years ago? You wear feelings and faith differently as well.

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

The machinery of the democratic process is really no different today from what it was 150 years ago.

Yes, in fact, it's hard to believe this, but it was almost 18 years ago when I first got the idea.

Yes, we've still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

Life is a process, and you just take it a day at a time, and you can't live in tomorrow, and you can't reach back and be in yesterday. No matter how much you want to, you just have what's right there in front of you.

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.