Progress

Life is a constant process of growths, a continual succession of epochs; and each present instant as it passes, bears on its front and rear the two mottoes, "Farewell to the Past!" "Hail to the Future!"
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, The Sources Of Consolation In Human Life (1892). Chapter V. Partings In Human Life; Or, The Farewells Of The World

Always
We'll go even further never advancing.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky), Always

In seeking to estimate progress, material, moral, or artistic, we must first answer two questions which may be summed up in the words Whence? and Whither?
~ William Archer, About the Theatre: Essays and Studies (1886). Are We Advancing? (1882-1886.)

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.
~ Karle Wilson Baker, from Blue Smoke (1919). Good Company

Every step forward in mechanical technique is a step in the direction of abstraction. This capacity for living easily and familiarly at an extraordinary level of abstraction is the source of modern man's power. With it he has transformed the planet, annihilated space, and trebled the world's population. But it is also a power which has, like everything human, its negative side, in the desolating sense of rootlessness, vacuity, and the lack of concrete feeling that assails modern man in his moments of real anxiety.
~ William E. Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958).

Fields of learning are surrounded ulimately only by illusory boundaries -- like the 'rooms' in a hall of mirrors. It is when the illusion is penetrated that progress takes place.
~ William S. Beck, Modern Science and the Nature of Life (1957).

Worthwhile advances are seldom made without taking risks.
~ William Ian Beardmore (W.I.B.) Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950).

The only way to grow is to risk failure. Be unique! Not a copy! I'd rather be copied.
~ Bill Bixby, in TV Guide Magazine (1 December 1973).

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). The Argument

Who will deny that ... the goal of universal equality, freedom and prosperity is far from won and that ugly inequities continue to mar the face of our nation? We are surely nearer the beginning than the end of the struggle.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr., Address before the Washington Judiciary Conference, Spokane WA (25 August 1986).

Cherishing our ideals, we must do the best we can with the material we have at hand, and having gained one step, we must stand there until we can take another. Thus has all progress been made.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Address at the National Peace Conference, New York (17 April 1907).

The revolution will come from ignoring the others out of existence.
~ William S. Burroughs, Interview in Rolling Stone (28 February 1974). Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman

When you stop growing you start dying.
~ William S. Burroughs, Junky (1977 edition). Prologue

[L]et bold progress have his will!
And let the world grow faster still!
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from Poems (1871). Lost and Reclaimed: I. Home

Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.
~ "Johnny" William Carson

By growth I mean growth in how we're going to guard. Growth in how our players handle themselves on the floor. Growth in our ability to learn how to share the ball and help each other be successful. If we can do that, we'll become not only a better basketball team, but we'll win some games, as well.
~ Bill Cartwright, The Associated Press (29 December 2001). Cartwright man in the middle for the Bulls again

Populations can, and often do exceed carrying capacity, and come to grief only after a delay.
~ William R. Catton, Jr., Negative Population Growth (August 1998). Malthus: More Relevant Than Ever

In this life progression is the universal law. Nothing is brought into being in its most perfect state. Every thing rises to maturity from feeble beginnings.
~ William Ellery Channing, from Memoir of William Ellery Channing: With Extracts from His Correspondence and Manuscripts (1848), Vol. II. Part II (Continued). Chapter IV: Spiritual Growth

Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.
~ William Ellery Channing, Annual Oration Delivered Before The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia PA (18 October 1823). The Importance and Means of A National Literature

To cultivate any thing, be it a plant, an animal, a mind, is to make it grow. Growth, expansion is the end.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

We must forget what is behind. If we cease to originate we are lost. We can only keep what we have, by new activity.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Progress

We need not be what we were yesterday. ... Onward is the word!
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Progress

Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,
And we too wise to trust them.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book V. The Winter Morning Walk

I don't regret economic and educational advance; I just wonder how much we shall have to pay for it, and in what coin.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970).

Education and work are the levers to uplift a people.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, in The Negro Problem (1903). The Talented Tenth

How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure, -- is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Of the Meaning of Progress

Progress is the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form and will.
~ William James "Will" Durant, in The Greatest Minds And Ideas Of All Time (2002). Chapter Five. The Ten "Peaks" of Human Progress

Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.
~ Charles William Eliot

You must struggle, rise. But in order to rise, you must raise the shadow with you.
~ William Faulkner, Light in August (1932).

Temporary success can be achieved in spite of lack of other fundamental qualities, but no advancements can be maintained without hard work.
~ William Feather

If any one intends to improve his condition, he must earn all he can, spend as little as he can, and make what he does spend bring him and his family all the real enjoyments he can.
~ William Felkin, Address to the Statistical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Liverpool (13 September 1837).

I've been barbecued, stewed, screwed, tattooed, and fried by people claiming to be my friends. The human race has gone backward, not forward, since the days we were apes swinging through the trees.
~ W.C. Fields, quoted in W.C. Fields and Me (1971).

Men have learned to travel farther and faster, though on errands not conspicuously improved. This, I believe, is called progress.
~ Willis Fisher, Small-Town Middle Westerner

Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.
~ William Friedkin, The Harold Lloyd Master Seminar Series at the American Film Institute (16 March 1994).

Never underestimate the importance of nastiness to our progress thus far. If intelligence and gentleness were the chief criteria, our planet would be ruled by whales.
~ John William Gardner

[G]radualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, in William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story Of His Life Told By His Children, Volume II (1885). Chapter IV: Pennsylvania Hall. -- The Non-resistance Society. -- 1838

Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.
~ Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999).

Humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.
~ Bill Gates, Commencement Address at Harvard University, Cambridge MA (7 June 2007).

We're focused on providing innovations in software, driving the continuous improvements for a much better experience, and there's a lot going on here that speaks to this decade and what's going to happen in this decade. We can kind of sum it up in terms of saying, "Yes, you can."
~ Bill Gates, Speech at New York City (25 October 2001). Windows XP Launch Remarks

Everything is of slow growth, my friends, in this world, that is good. ... In all things, material, moral, political, economical, the rule is slow growth. We must do the best we can, and if we find a thing wrong, we must wait a long period of time to fix it.
~ William Jay Gaynor, Speech at the Seventy-second Annual Meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society (1912). The Cost of Living Problem

Implicit faith, blind submission to authority, timid fear, a distrust of our powers, an inattention to our own importance and the good purposes we are able to effect, these are the chief obstacles to human improvement.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). Book V: Of Legislative and Executive Power. Chapter 14: General Features of Democracy

Life must progress in part by the imprudence of those who undertake the impossible, not knowing what they do.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, The Meaning of Immortality in Human Experience (1957).

Creativity is an area in which younger people have a tremendous advantage, since they have an endearing habit of always questioning past wisdom and authority. They say to themselves that there must be a better way. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they discover that the existing, traditional way is the best. But it is that one percent that counts. That is how progress is made.
~ William R. Hewlett, Address to MIT graduates (1986). Random Thoughts on Creativity

Man and all his achievements will one day be obliterated like a child's sand-castle when the next tide comes in.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, Second Series (1922). The Idea of Progress

The belief in progress, not as an ideal but as an indisputable fact, not as a task for humanity but as a law of Nature, has been the working faith of the West for about a hundred and fifty years.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Idea of Progress (Romanes Lecture, May 1920)

There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggle. "You forget," said the Devil, with a chuckle, "that I have been evolving too."
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Things New and Old (1933).

Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small, and imitation by the rest of us -- these are the sole factors active in human progress.
~ William James, Address Delivered at a Meeting of the Association of American Alumni at Radcliff College (7 November 1907). The Social Value of the College-Bred

[T]oo sweet to last.
~ Sir William Jones, from Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages (1772). A Turkish Ode of Mesihi

Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose.
~ William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness (1900). II: Hurry, the Scourge of America

Is the right
Dead --
Under the wheels of progress
By the side of the road to success,
Bleeding and bruised and broken,
Left in forgetfulness?
~ William James Lampton, in Pearson's Magazine (April 1907). These Days

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody else's advice.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

My father, (a) Marine and Naval aviator, had a big influence on me in terms of just the natural progression. You finish high school, you go to college. I went to the Naval Academy; it just seemed the natural thing to do. And went on into Naval aviation in my father's footsteps.
~ William C. "Willie" McCool, The St. Petersburg Times (2 February 2003). Columbia: the crew

Significant progress doesn't come from the formal planning process of an American corporation. It comes from a couple of guys doing something that hasn't been set down on a list.
~ William G. ("Bill") McGowan

If you put fences around people, you get sheep; give people the room they need.
~ William McKnight

Moving together rhythmically for hours on end can be counted upon to strengthen emotional bonds among those who take part. ... What we may think of as the human scale of primary community, comprising anything from several score to many hundreds of persons, thus emerged, thanks to the emotional solidarities aroused by keeping together in time.
~ William Hardy McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (October 1995). Human Evolution

Acceptance is such an important commodity, some have called it "the first law of personal growth."
~ Peter McWilliams, Life 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned about Life in School--But Didn't (August 1994).

The perception that things are solid and stationary is an illusion.
~ Peter McWilliams, Life 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned about Life in School--But Didn't (August 1994).

Urban areas could well continue to congeal into introverted affluent, gated communities intermixed with "black holes" of disinvestment, neglect, and poverty -- particularly if, as the unrestrained logic of the market seems to suggest, low-income communities turn out to be the last to get digital telecommunications infrastructure and the skills to use it effectively.
~ William J. Mitchell, E-topia: Urban Life, Jim -- But Not As We Know It (1999).

[T]he land is a little land, Sirs, too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness.
~ William Morris, Address delivered before the Trades' Guild of Learning, London (4 December 1877). The Decorative Arts, Their Relation To Modern Life And Progress

A man's value and progress in this life must be measured, not by what he gets outwardly, but by what he gains inwardly.
~ William Henry Harrison (W.H.H.) Murray

Become who you are.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

But we do as we have always done: we take whatever is cast into us down into our depths -- for we are deep, we do not forget -- and once more grow clear ...
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Every tiny step forward in the world was formerly made at the cost of mental and physical torture.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).

For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Zarathustra III Before Sunrise

From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

As the tree is bent, so it will grow.
~ Bill O'Reilly, The No-Spin Zone (October 2001). Introduction

The determination of structure with a view to the discovery of function has been the foundation of progress.
~ William Osler, from Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practioners of Medicine (1904). V. The Leaven Of Science (delivered at Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology of the University of Pennsylvania; 1894)

In this climate of football as we've witnessed, you have to show some progress or there's a good chance you won't be in some place for very long.
~ Bill Parcells, quoted in ESPN (said on his nationally syndicated weekly radio show, 2 January 2003). Parcells undecided on Smith, Hutchinson

Copyright has become the mechanism to eliminate consumer choice, innovation, and the creation of culture. Copyright is now a serious impediment to technological and social progress.
~ William F. Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (2009).

Ultimate progress is not straight up, but by a spiral movement; for the most practicable way to reach the loftiest heights with our human limitations is not by direct scaling, but by a winding ascent.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Teaching in School and College (1912). X: The Moral Aspect of Teaching

The more all things are studied, the more do wonders appear.
~ William S. Plumer

The summit of our attainment yesterday should be the starting point of our venture today.
~ William Morley (W.M.) Punshon

Human potential, though not always apparent, is there waiting to be discovered and invited forth.
~ William Watson Purkey, International Alliance for Invitational Education

The watchword of progress is, Hands off!
~ William Brighty Rands (as Matthew Browne), Views and Opinions (1866). XXI. Art and Popular Amusement: II

Whoever improves his own nature improves the universe of which he is a part.
~ W. (William) Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (1872). Chapter IV: Intellect

Both when we advance and when we fail, we gain.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

It is not the number of books you read, nor the variety of sermons you hear, nor the amount of religious conversation in which you mix, but it is the frequency and earnestness with which you meditate on these things until the truth in them becomes your own and part of your being, that ensures your growth.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
~ Will Rogers

Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them.
~ Will Rogers

You never saw a good horse grow where a good man couldn't.
~ Will Rogers, in The New York Times (6 April 1932).

There's always room for improvement. If you're not improving, somebody else will go right by you.
~ William Rosenberg, in Restaurants and Institutions magazine (1 March 2002). William Rosenberg: On never taking success for granted

It is not knowledge that moves the world, but character, love.
~ William Mackintire (W.M.) Salter, Ethical Religion (1889). XII. Good Friday from a Modern Standpoint

A growing thing whose stages of growth always went unnoticed ...
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

I looked, I saw, I understood, I felt, "That's that, where do we go from here?"
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

The masses must move, but it must be the classes that move them.
~ William Sanders Scarborough, The Educated Negro and His Mission (1903).

If there is one statement true of every living person it must be this: he hasn't achieved his full potential.
~ William Schutz, Joy. Expanding Human Awareness (1967).

[T]he whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.
~ William Henry Seward, The Life of William H. Seward with Selections from his Works (1855). Selections. (Address before the American Bible Society; 1839)

I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act I, scene ii

I'll be patient as a gentle stream
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
~ William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II, scene vii

The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act I, scene iii

The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act I, scene iii

Falling short of perfection is a process that just never stops.
~ William Shawn, quoted in The New York Times (9 December 1992). William Shawn, 85, Is Dead; New Yorker's Gentle Despot

A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Of Men and Manners

The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian.
~ William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside (1853).

Time and Tide for no Man stay.
~ William Somervile, from Occasional Poems, Translations, Fables, Tales, Etc. (1727). The Sweet-scented Miser

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

The conquest of one difficulty will only open the way to another; the solution of one problem will only bring man face to face with another. Man wins by the fight, not by the victory, and therefore the possibilities of growth are unlimited, for the fight has no end.
~ William Graham Sumner, in The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays (1914). The Challenge of Facts

What is to be gained is progress and what[ever] the deuce that is, it is to be found here.
~ Vincent Willem van Gogh, in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 2 (1958). Letter of Summer 1886

Progress is a continuing effort to make the things we eat, drink and wear as good as they used to be.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

Progress brings complaints. You cannot set yourself against the status quo and expect that the status quo isn't going to fight you back. The status quo, by definition, wins almost every battle; otherwise, it ain't the status quo anymore. So you pick yourself up, dig the dirt out or your ears and try again.
~ Bill Veeck, Jr., in Marketing Your Dreams: Business And Life Lessons From Bill Veeck, Baseball's Marketing Genius (2000).

Learn and grow all you can; serve and befriend all you can; enrich and inspire all you can.
~ William Arthur Ward

We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.
~ William C. Westmoreland, Report on the Vietnam War before the National Press Club, Washington DC (21 November 1967).

As a matter of fact student riots of one sort or another, protests against the order that is, kicks against college and university management indicate a healthy growth and a normal functioning of the academic mind.
~ William Allen White, Editorial in The Emporia Gazette (8 April 1932). Student Riots

This world is made better by every man improving his own conduct.
~ William Allen White, in A Man from Kansas: The Story of William Allen White (1945).

I know that the soul is aided
Sometimes by the heart's unrest,
And to grow means often to suffer --
But whatever is--is best.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Whatever Is--Is Best

Progress always involves risks. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.
~ Frederick B. Wilcox

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.
~ George F. Will, in Newsweek magazine (1994).

Better highways don't make better picnics.
~ William Appleman Williams

Some people sneer at them, call them 'crotchetty,' 'faddy', etc., but, for my own part, I have a great respect for crotchetty people, having learned long ago that every first great step that has even been taken in the path of human progress was denounced as a crotchet by those it was leaving behind.
~ William Mattieu Williams, The Chemistry of Cookery (1885). Chapter XVII: The Vegetarian Question

It is not man's condition alone that needs bettering, but his heart much more.
~ William R. Williams, Address at the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, Madison County NY (1843). The Conservative Principle in Our Literature

Oh! when will those who guide our noble state,
Make for the helpless poor a better fate,
And guard, with liberal hand, those bonds of peace,
Within whose circle war and discord cease?
~ Henry Williamson, Heaven's Evangel And Other Poems (1865). The Evangel of Love

Ere time and place were, time and place were not;
Where primitive nothing something straight begot;
Then all proceeded from the great united what.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester, Upon Nothing (1680).

The discovery of one star is the promise of another.
~ Robert Eldridge Aris (R.A.) Willmott, Pleasures, Objects, And Advantages Of Literature (1855 edition). XXIII. Philosophy and Its Delights

AA is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.
~ Bill Wilson, As Bill Sees It: The A.A. Way of Life (December 1967).

The price of progress is trouble, and I must be making a lot of progress.
~ Charles E. Wilson

Ridding oneself of this feeling that the universe has a personal grudge against one is the first and most difficult task in growing to adulthood.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, Beyond The Outsider: The Philosophy of the Future (1965).

Advances are always initiated as the result of comparison.
~ William E. Woodard, (1928)

Let us allow and believe that there is a progress in the species towards unattainable perfection, or whether this be so or not, that it is a necessity of a good and greatly-gifted nature to believe it.
~ William Wordsworth, Essay in The Friend (14 December 1809).

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads, Vol. II (1800 edition). Lucy Gray, Stanza 2 (1799).

[P]rogress -- the sole religious myth of modern man.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Wheels and Butterflies (1934). The Words upon the Window-pane