“All men indeed cannot be poets, inventors or philanthropists; but all men can join in that gigantic and godlike work, the progress of creation. Whoever improves his own nature improves the universe of which he is a part.”

—  William Winwood Reade

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect"

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All men indeed cannot be poets, inventors or philanthropists; but all men can join in that gigantic and godlike work, t…" by William Winwood Reade?
William Winwood Reade photo
William Winwood Reade 32
British historian 1838–1875

Related quotes

André Maurois photo

“Almost all men improve on acquaintance.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Marie Curie photo

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168

James Allen photo

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Denis Diderot photo

“This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Article on Encyclopedia, as translated in The Many Faces of Philosophy : Reflections from Plato to Arendt (2001), "Diderot", p. 237
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)

Jerry Coyne photo

“Religion has nothing to tell scientists that can improve their trade. Indeed, the progress of science has required shedding all vestiges of religion, whether those be the beliefs themselves or religious methods for finding “truth.””

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

We do not need those hypotheses.
Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 257

George Long photo

“We have, all of us, with a few unlucky exceptions, for which special schools are required, hands, eyes, and ears; and all these members should be trained and practiced in elementary education, as a means of improving the use of these organs, and so improving the great organ which directs and oversees the work of hands, eyes, and ears, and judges of its own work and its own acts.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

Mata Amritanandamayi photo

“Love is an emotion common to all living beings. It is the path women can take to reach men, men to women, both to Nature, and Nature to the universe. And the love that overflows all boundaries is vishwa matrutvam—universal motherhood.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Infinite Potential of Women (2008)

Aldous Huxley photo

“There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.”

Aldous Huxley book Time Must Have a Stop

Time Must Have a Stop (1944)

Isaac Asimov photo

“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
General sources

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël photo

“The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) Swiss author

The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les istitutions sociales, 1800) , Pt. 2, ch. 4
Context: The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.

Related topics