A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.
A process which led from the amoebae to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress — though whether the amoebae would agree with this opinion is not known.
A radical is one of whom people say ''He goes too far.'' A conservative, on the other hand, is one who ''doesn't go far enough.'' Then there is the reactionary, ''one who doesn't go at all.'' All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
All progress is experimental.
All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
All progress means war with society.
Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize… the immense riches accumulated by the human race. By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.
Every convenience brings its own inconveniences along with it.
He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.
I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
I was taught that the way of progress I neither swift nor easy.
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet.
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?