1,930 Quotes About Progress

It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies.

In science we may start with experimental results, data, observations, measurements, ‘facts’. We invent, if we can, a rich array of possible explanations and systematically confront each explanation with the facts.

Socialism is nothing but an everyday, ordinary concern for society. If people philosophize it with the term socialism, that's their problem.

If there are no new ideas, there is no innovation. And if there is no creativity, there are no new ideas.

I don't recognize any authority, for human civilization has only one authority, it's the authority of human values.

Too much action with too little intent makes for wasteful exertion of energy and the confusion between movement and progress.

Truth demands progress and change, and is always for the benefit of all souls—even if you must travel through a difficult learning process or make a shift as a result of facing the truth.

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.

I am not suggesting we should be skeptical of the notion that life can get a lot better. Yet this should not be confused with the question of whether any better state we can reasonably expect to bring about — such as a much happier state — can ever morally outweigh all the suffering its creation would entail, including the (risk of) extreme suffering.