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The gracious lesson taught by science to this country is that the history of Nature from first to last is incessant advance from less to more, from rude to finer organization, the globe of matter thus conspiring with the principle of undying hope in man. Nature works in immense time, and spends individuals and races prodigally to prepare new individuals and races.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Fortune of the Republic,” lecture, Boston (1878-03-30)
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Final version of a lecture first given in 1863, and his last public speech.
 
Added on 15-Dec-11 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
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The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. We are active; and indeed we know, as something more than a symbolic accident in the evolution of man, that it is the hand that drives the subsequent evolution of the brain. We find tools today made by man before he became man. Benjamin Franklin in 1778 called man “a tool-making animal,” and that is right.

Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
The Ascent of Man, ch. 3 (1973)
 
Added on 8-Dec-10 | Last updated 28-Aug-17
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The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Vicissitude of Things,” Essays, No. 58 (1625)
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Added on 20-Aug-10 | Last updated 25-Mar-22
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A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 9-Sep-22
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No individual or group will be judged by whether they come up to or fall short of some fixed result, but by the direction in which they are moving. The band mans is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man in the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. Such a conception makes one severe in judging himself and humane in judging others.

John Dewey (1859-1952) American teacher and philosopher
Reconstruction in Philosophy, ch. 7 “Moral Reconstruction” (1919)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 30-Dec-20
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All change is not growth; all movement is not forward.

Glasgow - All change is not growth all movement is not forward - wist.info quote

Ellen Glasgow (1874-1945) American author
In Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1939 ed.)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Nov-22
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Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations, Book 4, # 36 [tr. Long (1862)]
    (Source)

Alternate translations:

  • "Incessantly consider, all things that are, have their being by change and alteration. Use thyself therefore often to meditate upon this, that the nature of the universe delights in nothing more, than in altering those things that are, and in making others like unto them." [tr. Casaubon (1634), #29]
  • "Accustom yourself to consider, that whatever is produced, is produced by alteration: that nature loves nothing so much as shifting the scene, and bringing new persons upon the stage." [tr. Collier (1701)]
  • "Accustom yourself to consider that whatever is produced, is produced by alteration; that nature loves nothing so much as changing existing things and producing new ones like them." [tr. Zimmern (1887)]
  • "Contemplate continually all things coming to pass by change, and accustom yourself to think that Universal Nature loves nothing so much as to change what is and to create new things in their likeness." [tr. Farquharson (1944)]
  • "Observe how all things are continually being born of change; teach yourself to see that Nature's highest happiness lies in changing the things that are, and forming new things after their kind." [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
  • "Constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that ther is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it." [tr. Hays (2003)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 10-Mar-21
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This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“Abraham Lincoln” (1864), My Study Windows (1871)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 24-Mar-23
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The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1898 [ed. Paine (1935)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the ‘Origin of Species’ with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them. Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species,” lecture, Royal Institution (19 Mar 1880)
    (Source)

First printed in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science (6 May 1880).
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 24-Nov-21
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If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.

Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) American humorist and illustrator
(Attributed)

Common paraphrase. In Look Eleven Years Younger (1937), Burgess gives two versions of the quotation:
  • "When you find you haven’t discarded a major opinion for years, or acquired a new one, you should stop and investigate to see if you’re not growing senile."
  • "If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one investigate and see if you’re not growing senile."
See for more discussion.
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Apr-16
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