No great advance has been made in science, religion, or politics, without controversy.

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) American minister, preacher, abolitionist

Sermon (1823-10-15), “The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints,” Worcester, Massachusetts
    (Source)

A sermon on Jude 3, given at the ordination of Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadly, to the Pastoral Office over the Calvinistic Church and Society. Collected in Beecher, Sermons Delivered on Various Occasions (1828) [ed. Theophilus Marvin].

This is nearly always rendered:

No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy.
 

That is the form recorded in Josiah Gilbert's inaugural Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1883), from which it was endlessly copied to similar collections.