“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

— Clive Staples Lewis, book Mere Christianity

Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Mere Christianity (1952)

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Clive Staples Lewis272

Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist 1898–1963

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 78

“Maybe the man had taken the wrong turning, but at least he'd travelled some extraordinary roads.”

Clive Barker book Weaveworld

Source: Weaveworld

“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.”

Barbara Hall (1946) Canadian politician

“Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, set forth a hypothesis which was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in Opinion Journal (22 July 2006) http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008690

“To oppose something is to maintain it.
They say here “all roads lead to Mishnory.” To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 11 “Soliloquies in Mishnory” (p. 151)

“After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, "Oh, this pace is terrible!" But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress.”

Shunryu Suzuki book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Pt. 1 : Right Practice, "Bowing"
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1973)

“There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.”

Philip Roth book American Pastoral

Source: American Pastoral

“The Rom believe you should take the road that calls to you, and never turn back. Because you never know what adventures await."… "So we're going to take this road," he murmured, "and see where it leads.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

“If you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Variant: Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

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