Quotes about advancement
page 6

Fritjof Capra photo
Charles Boarman photo

“My dear Father, Charley wrote you in his letter to his Aunt Laura thanking you for your kindness in sending us a nice Christmas present. You must not think because I have not written you myself before this that I appreciated your kindness less. I have been so troubled with pains and weakness in my arm and hand as to be almost useless at times. I think it was nursing so much when the children were sick. I was so relieved when Anna's note to Charly arrived yesterday telling Frankie was better. It would have been dreadful for Mother to have gone out west at this miserable season of the year. I was wretchedly uneasy. I do hope poor Franky will get along nicely now. It will make him much more careful about exposing himself having had this severe attack. Charley received the enclosed letters Anna sent from Sister Eliza and Toad[? ]. I was very glad to get them. It is quite refreshing to read Sister Eliza's letters. They are so cheerful and happy. I had a letter from her on Friday. This Custom House investigating committee is attracting a great deal of attention and time here. It holds its sessions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Broome was up on Tuesday evening until ten o'clock but was not called upon. It is very slow. He has been for three weeks passed preparing the statement for those summoned from the Public Stores. Mr. Broome sends Laura a paper to look at—The Fisk tragedy. What is Nora doing with herself this winter. She might write to me sometimes. Give much love to Mother. Ask her for her receipt for getting fat. I would like to gain some myself. It is so much nicer to grow fleshy as you advance in life than to shrivel and dry up. The children are all well and growing very fast. Lloyd has to study very hard this year. His studies are quite difficult. I suppose Charley Harris is working hard too. Mr. Broome sent you a paper with the Navy Register in this week. I received your papers and often Richard calls and gets them. I must close. Mr. Broome and children join me in love to you, Mother, Laura, Anna, Nora, Charly & all.
With much love,
Your devoted child, Mary Jane
I enclose Nancy letter which was written some time ago.”

Charles Boarman (1795–1879) US Navy Rear Admiral

Mary Jane Boarman in a Sunday letter to her father (January 21, 1872)
The people mentioned in Mary Jane's letter were her children Lloyd, Charley, and Nancy; her husband, William Henry Broome; her sisters Eliza, Anna, Laura, and Nora; her brother Frankie; and her nephew frontier physician Dr. Charles "Charley" Harris, son of her sister Susan.
John Broome and Rebecca Lloyd: Their Descendants and Related Families, 18th to 21st Centuries (2009)

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo

“People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

25 December 1753
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

“We are so accustomed to hear arithmetic spoken of as one of the three fundamental ingredients in all schemes of instruction, that it seems like inquiring too curiously to ask why this should be. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic—these three are assumed to be of co-ordinate rank. Are they indeed co-ordinate, and if so on what grounds?
In this modern “trivium” the art of reading is put first. Well, there is no doubt as to its right to the foremost place. For reading is the instrument of all our acquisition. It is indispensable. There is not an hour in our lives in which it does not make a great difference to us whether we can read or not. And the art of Writing, too; that is the instrument of all communication, and it becomes, in one form or other, useful to us every day. But Counting—doing sums,—how often in life does this accomplishment come into exercise? Beyond the simplest additions, and the power to check the items of a bill, the arithmetical knowledge required of any well-informed person in private life is very limited. For all practical purposes, whatever I may have learned at school of fractions, or proportion, or decimals, is, unless I happen to be in business, far less available to me in life than a knowledge, say, of history of my own country, or the elementary truths of physics. The truth is, that regarded as practical arts, reading, writing, and arithmetic have no right to be classed together as co-ordinate elements of education; for the last of these is considerably less useful to the average man or woman not only than the other two, but than 267 many others that might be named. But reading, writing, and such mathematical or logical exercise as may be gained in connection with the manifestation of numbers, have a right to constitute the primary elements of instruction. And I believe that arithmetic, if it deserves the high place that it conventionally holds in our educational system, deserves it mainly on the ground that it is to be treated as a logical exercise. It is the only branch of mathematics which has found its way into primary and early education; other departments of pure science being reserved for what is called higher or university instruction. But all the arguments in favor of teaching algebra and trigonometry to advanced students, apply equally to the teaching of the principles or theory of arithmetic to schoolboys. It is calculated to do for them exactly the same kind of service, to educate one side of their minds, to bring into play one set of faculties which cannot be so severely or properly exercised in any other department of learning. In short, relatively to the needs of a beginner, Arithmetic, as a science, is just as valuable—it is certainly quite as intelligible—as the higher mathematics to a university student.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 267-268.

Andrew Carnegie photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Walter Scott photo

“Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Canto II, stanza 19.
The Lady of the Lake http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3011 (1810)

Mark Rothko photo
Amir Khusrow photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo

“Who would be such a fool as to make advances to his reader, advances which might end in rejection or, worse still, in acceptance?”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Her Shield”. p. 181
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Joseph Goebbels photo
Charles A. Beard photo
John William Dunne photo
Brian Leiter photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
H. G. Wells photo

“Kipps was unprepared for the unpleasant truth; that the path of social advancement is and must be strewn with broken friendships.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

Kipps the Story of a Simple Soul (1905) Bk. 2, ch. 5

Simon Blackburn photo

“Since there is no telling in advance where it may lead, reflection can be seen as dangerous.”

Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher

Introduction, p. 11
Think (1999)

Conrad Aiken photo
Patrick Nielsen Hayden photo
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo
George W. Bush photo
Regina E. Dugan photo

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

Jerome David Salinger photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It will come.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1810s, Letter to Edward Coles (1814)

Cargill Gilston Knott photo

“Scientific theory and its application to the growing needs of mankind advance hand in hand.”

Cargill Gilston Knott (1856–1922) British mathematician and physicist

[Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait: supplementing the two volumes of Scientific papers published in 1898 and 1900, Cambridge University Press, 1911, http://www.archive.org/details/lifescientificwo00knotrich, 1]

Lee Myung-bak photo
Gloria Allred photo

“Gloria Allred is a feminist attorney who has tried numerous cases to advance women's rights.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

[Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics, Lynne E. Ford, 27, Allred, Gloria (Gloria Rachel Allred), 2008, 978-0816054916, Facts on File Library of American History, Facts on File]
About

Daniel Tammet photo
Max Tegmark photo

“So with each advance in understanding come new questions. So we need to be very humble. We shouldn't have hubris and think that we can understand everything. But history tells us that there is good reason to believe that we will continue making fantastic progress in the years ahead.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

Interview http://www.templeton.org/features/grant/fqx/hp-sub01.html with the Co-Founders of the Foundational Questions Institute, Dr.Max Tegmark and Dr. Anthony Aguirre.

Nina Paley photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo

“…skies and clouds were still regarded as something quite apart from the rest of the picture, and, indeed, are still so regarded by the less advanced.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Clouds. Their use, and practical instructions as to how to photography them, p. 92

Joseph Hayne Rainey photo

“A remedy is needed to meet the evil now existing in most of the southern states, but especially in that one which I have the honor to represent in part, the State of South Carolina. The enormity of the crimes constantly perpetrated there finds no parallel in the history of this republic in her very darkest days. There was a time when the early settlers of New England were compelled to enter the fields, their homes, even the very sanctuary itself, armed to the full extent of their means. While the people were offering their worship to God within those humble walls their voices kept time with the tread of the sentry outside. But, sir, it must be borne in mind that at the time referred to civilization had but just begun its work upon this continent. The surroundings were unpropitious, and as yet the grand capabilities of this fair land lay dormant under the fierce tread of the red man. But as civilization advanced with its steady and resistless sway it drove back those wild cohorts and compelled them to give way to the march of improvement. In course of time superior intelligence made its impress and established its dominion upon this continent. That intelligence, with an influence like that of the sun rising in the east and spreading its broad rays like a garment of light, gave life and gladness to the dark.”

Joseph Hayne Rainey (1832–1887) politician

1871, Speech on the the Ku Klux Klan Bill of 1871 (1 April 1871)

Syama Prasad Mookerjee photo
Émile Durkheim photo
George Chapman photo
Luther H. Gulick photo
Gene Amdahl photo
James Fenimore Cooper photo
Steve Jobs photo

“We believe it's the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On Toy Story as quoted in Fortune (18 September 1995)
1990s

Nathanael Greene photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
William Ellery Channing photo
George W. Bush photo
Bill Frist photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his purpose in this life.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 103

Georges Braque photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
E. W. Hobson photo

“A great department of thought must have its own inner life, however transcendent may be the importance of its relations to the outside. No department of science, least of all one requiring so high a degree of mental concentration as Mathematics, can be developed entirely, or even mainly, with a view to applications outside its own range. The increased complexity and specialisation of all branches of knowledge makes it true in the present, however it may have been in former times, that important advances in such a department as Mathematics can be expected only from men who are interested in the subject for its own sake, and who, whilst keeping an open mind for suggestions from outside, allow their thought to range freely in those lines of advance which are indicated by the present state of their subject, untrammelled by any preoccupation as to applications to other departments of science. Even with a view to applications, if Mathematics is to be adequately equipped for the purpose of coping with the intricate problems which will be presented to it in the future by Physics, Chemistry and other branches of physical science, many of these problems probably of a character which we cannot at present forecast, it is essential that Mathematics should be allowed to develop freely on its own lines.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A (1910), p. 286; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 106): Modern mathematics.

David Horowitz photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Manuel Castells photo
E. W. Hobson photo
Warren Buffett photo

“Our performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market … in a year when the general market had a substantial advance, I would be well satisfied to match the advance of the averages.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Second annual letter to Limited Partners (1957) http://www.safalniveshak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Warren-Buffett-Berkshire-Letters-1957-2012.pdf
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

George W. Bush photo
Iltutmish photo
Camille Pissarro photo
William Trufant Foster photo
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery photo

“…it is a revolution without any mandate from the people. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, it is in the first place a revolution in fiscal methods…this Budget is introduced as a Liberal measure. If so, all I can say is that it is a new Liberalism and not the one that I have known and practised under more illustrious auspices than these. (Cheers.) Who was the greatest, not merely the greatest Liberal, but the greatest financier that this country has ever known? (A voice, "Gladstone.") I mean Mr. Gladstone. (Cheers.) With Sir Robert Peel—he, I think, occupied a position even higher than Sir Robert Peel—for boldness of imagination and scope of financing Mr. Gladstone ranks as the great financial authority of our time. (Cheers.) Now, we have in the Cabinet at this moment several colleagues, several ex-colleagues of mine, who served in the Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone…and I ask them, without a moment's fear or hesitation as to the answer that would follow if they gave it from their conscience, with what feelings would they approach Mr. Gladstone, were he Prime Minister and still living, with such a Budget as this? Mr. Gladstone would be 100 in December if he were alive; but, centenarian as he would be, I venture to say that he would make short work of the deputation of the Cabinet that waited on him with the measure, and they would soon find themselves on the stairs and not in the room. (Laughter and cheers.) In his eyes, and in my eyes, too, as a humble disciple, Liberalism and Liberty were cognate terms. They were twin-sisters. How does the Budget stand the test of Liberalism so understood and of Liberty as we have always comprehended it? This Budget seems to establish an inquisition, unknown previously in Great Britain, and a tyranny, I venture to say, unknown to mankind…I think my friends are moving on the path that leads to Socialism. How far they are advanced on that path I will not say, but on that path I, at any rate, cannot follow them an inch. (Loud cheers.) Any form of protection is an evil, but Socialism is the end of all, the negation of faith, of family, of prosperity, of the monarchy, of Empire.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Loud cheers.
Speech in Glasgow attacking the "People's Budget" (10 September 1909), reported in The Times (11 September 1909), pp. 7-8.

Hugh Downs photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Hasan Nizami writes that after the suppression of a Hindu revolt at Kol (Aligarh) in 1193 AD, Aibak raised “three bastions as high as heaven with their heads, and their carcases became food for beasts of prey. The tract was freed from idols and idol-worship and the foundations of infidelism were destroyed.” In 1194 AD Aibak destroyed 27 Hindu temples at Delhi and built the Quwwat-ul-Islãm mosque with their debris. According to Nizami, Aibak “adorned it with the stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by elephants”. In 1195 AD the Mher tribe of Ajmer rose in revolt, and the Chaulukyas of Gujarat came to their assistance. Aibak had to invite re-inforcements from Ghazni before he could meet the challenge. In 1196 AD he advanced against Anahilwar Patan, the capital of Gujarat. Nizami writes that after Raja Karan was defeated and forced to flee, “fifty thousand infidels were despatched to hell by the sword” and “more than twenty thousand slaves, and cattle beyond all calculation fell into the hands of the victors”. The city was sacked, its temples demolished, and its palaces plundered. On his return to Ajmer, Aibak destroyed the Sanskrit College of Visaladeva, and laid the foundations of a mosque which came to be known as ADhãî Din kã JhoMpaDã. Conquest of Kalinjar in 1202 AD was Aibak’s crowning achievement. Nizami concludes: “The temples were converted into mosques… Fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.””

Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian

Hasan Nizami, quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231 Ch. 6

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
John Angell James photo
Bram van Velde photo

“You are in an area where knowledge fails. Where you have to advance in ignorance, not even knowing where you are going.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

Gary Steiner photo
Zach Galifianakis photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
H. G. Wells photo
Al Di Meola photo
Sister Nivedita photo
John Gray photo
Harun Yahya photo
Richard Stallman photo

“While corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance in technology is an opening for them to further restrict its users.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Stallman's Law (2012) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallmans-law.html
2010s
Variant: While corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users.

William Osler photo

“When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

"Internal Medicine as a Vocation" Address to the New York Academy of Medicine (1897); later published in Aequanimitas, and Other Addresses (1905).

Alberto Giacometti photo
Richard Stallman photo

“Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

nasal sex with dead plants
Stallman archives (28 June 2003) https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
2000s

Sinclair Lewis photo
Joseph Priestley photo
Jagadish Chandra Bose photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo
Douglas Mawson photo

“If we ignore the facts contained in one part of the world, surely we are hampering scientific advance.”

Douglas Mawson (1882–1958) Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and academic

The Home of the Blizzard (1915)

Otto Neurath photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Vannevar Bush photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Danny Yamashiro photo

“What tiny push is needed for you to advance someone near you? Remember, by doing so, you make personal progress yourself.”

Danny Yamashiro (1967) American radio evangelist

From Discover the Champion in You, pages 48

Charles Erwin Wilson photo