“What is it to make progress in religion? Progress is not only action but moving onward. A door turning upon its hinges is in a state of motion, but it never advances. A chariot moving upon wheels is not only in motion, but goes onward. The conduct of some persons in religion resembles the former — there is action, but no advancement; they move, but it is on hinges, not on wheels.”

Introduction.
An American Bible (1912)

Vangisasamyutta, as translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi (2000), p. 287
Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Samyutta Nikaya (Connected Discourses)

Source: The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (1994), Chapter 20, The Metaphysical Crossbeak (p. 289)

1 November 1833
Table Talk (1821–1834)

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

Interview in The Voice of Ethiopia (5 April 1948).
Context: The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man. It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement. When this comes to be realized man's journey toward higher and more lasting values will show more marked progress while the evil in him recedes into the background. Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both. Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.
It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.

Canto XXXIII, closing lines, as translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
Context: As the geometrician, who endeavours
To square the circle, and discovers not,
By taking thought, the principle he wants,Even such was I at that new apparition;
I wished to see how the image to the circle
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;But my own wings were not enough for this,
Had it not been that then my mind there smote
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish. Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:
But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved, The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (March 29, 1890)
Letters