Quotes about Progress

The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.

Men talk much of a new birth. The fact is fundamental. But the mistake is in treating it as an incident which can only happen to a man once in a lifetime: whereas the whole journey of life is a succession of them. A new life springs up in the soul with the discovery of every new agency by which the soul is raised to a higher level of wisdom: goodness and joy.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

He who does not advance in perfection falls into imperfection. An unattended garden becomes full of weeds. Things do not remain the same by being left alone. White fences do not stay white; they gradually become gray and then black. There are no planes in the spiritual life. We go uphill or we go downhill. The moment we cease to row against the stream, the current carries us down river.

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.