“Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more.”
The Stark Munro Letters (1894)
Context: The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time. Some eighty thousand years are supposed to have existed between paleolithic and neolithic man. Yet in all that time he only learned to grind his flint stones instead of chipping them. But within our father's lives what changes have there not been? The railway and the telegraph, chloroform and applied electricity. Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more. Primeval man stumbled along with peering eyes, and slow, uncertain footsteps. Now we walk briskly towards our unknown goal.
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Arthur Conan Doyle 166
Scottish physician and author 1859–1930Related quotes

What Can We Expect of the Moon?" in The American Legion Magazine, March 1965
General sources

“It is better to live ten years at a thousand [miles per hour] than a thousand years at a ten”
From the lyrics of his song Vida Louca, Vida (Life, Crazy Life)

Wall Street Journal Speech by Rahul Gandhi http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RahulGandhiSpeech.pdf
Vitaly Komar, Aleksandr Melamid, JoAnn Wypijewski (1997). Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art p. 16