Are We Making Progress or No? 21 Quotes About Progress

The Beatles wrote a song about progress in relationships called "It's Getting Better All the Time." As for society on a grander scale, a case can be made that whereas progress is being made in some areas it's open to debate whether things are really better. It depends on what you measure.

What follows are 21 ponderables for your consideration.

QUOTES ABOUT PROGRESS

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long. 
--Ogden Nash

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer. 

--George Santayana 

The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

--Fridtjof Nansen

We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.
--Woody Allen

Without deviation, progress is not possible.
--Frank Zappa 

What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.
--Henry Havelock Ellis

Change is one thing, progress is another. Change is scientific, progress is ethical. Change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
--Bertrand Russell

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
--Thomas Edison

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
--Bill Gates

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
--Arthur Schopenhauer

The technology life cycle has three stages: Hype, disillusionment, and application.

--Bob Lewis

The science of today is the technology of tomorrow. 

--Edward Teller

All progress is based upon a universal, innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
--Samuel Butler

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana

The most damaging phrase in the language is, "It's always been done that way."
--Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

Quality has to be caused, not controlled. 

--Philip Crosby

Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.
--Fred Brooks

 

Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
--Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.
--Benjamin Disraeli