Quotes about improvement
page 2

“Civil society organisations make a major contribution to human development, particularly when democracies are failing, or have failed; for it is then that the institutions of civil society can, and often do, carry an added burden to help sustain improvements in quality of life. I believe strongly that a critical part of any development strategy should include support for civil society. I know that Norway supports this approach and works actively with its own civil society organizations to build capacity in the developing world.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

In a speech on Democratic Development, Pluralism and Civil Society delivered at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway (7 April 2005). http://www.akdn.org/speech/nobel-institute-oslo

Life, World, Democracy, Support

“In Europe and in America, people are now more interested in the cost of quality and in systems of quality-audit. But in Japan, we are keeping very strong interest to improve quality by use of methods which you started…. when we improve quality we also improve productivity, just as you told us in 1950 would happen.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

Source: Out Of The Crisis (1982), p. 2

People, Strong

“There's an insistence that the Being that's spoken into being through Truth is Good. This is the most profound ever. It is also the most believable idea ever. What cures in therapy is Truth. Of course, you must encounter the things that you're afraid of, but this is enacted Truth, because if you know that there's something you need to do by your own set of rules and you're avoiding it, then you're enacting a lie. You're not speaking the lie, but you're enacting it, and that's the same thing: untruth. If you can confront If I can get you to face what it is that you know you shouldn't be avoiding, then what's happening is that we're both partaking in the process of you attempting to act out your deepest truth. That improves people's lives radically. The clinical evidence for that is overwhelming. We know that if you expose people to the things that they're afraid of and are avoiding, they get better. You have to do it carefully, cautiously, and with their approval and participation. Of all the things that clinicians have established that's credible, that's #1. It's redemptive insofar as both people are telling the truth. The difference between deception and repression is very small. People can handle earthquakes and cancer and even death, but they can't handle deception. They can't handle the rug being pulled out from underneath them by people who they love and trust. This does them in. It makes them ill, it hurts them psycho-physiologically, and worse than that it makes them cynical, bitter, vicious, and resentful. And then they also start to act all that out in the world, and that makes it worse.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Love, Death, People, Truth

“Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

In Russian: Жить стало лучше, товарищи. Жить стало веселее. Speech at the Conference of Stakhanovites http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SCS35.html (17 November 1935) Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Life

“Long hours of labour seem to be the secret of the rational and healthful processes, which are to raise the condition of the labourer by an improvement of his mental and moral powers and to make a rational consumer out of him.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. II, Ch. XXI, p. 520.
(Buch II) (1893)

Health, Secret

“We must make popular government responsible for the betterment both of the individual and of society at large. Let me repeat once more that, while such responsible governmental action is an absolutely necessary thing to achieve our purpose, yet it will be worse than useless if it is not accompanied by a serious effort on the part of the individuals composing the community thus to achieve each for himself a higher standard of individual betterment, not merely material but spiritual and intellectual. In other words, our democracy depends on individual improvement just as much as upon collective effort to achieve our common social improvement. The most serious troubles of the present day are unquestionably due in large part to lack of efficient govern-mental action, and cannot be remedied without such action; but neither can any remedy permanently avail unless back of it stands a high general character of individual citizenship.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Democracy, Communication, Effort, Parting

“MALCOLM X: Freedom, justice and equality are our principal ambitions. And to faithfully serve and follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the guiding goal of every Muslim. Mr. Muhammad teaches us the knowledge of our own selves, and of our own people. He cleans us up--morally, mentally and spiritually--and he reforms us of the vices that have blinded us here in the Western society. He stops black men from getting drunk, stops their dope addiction if they had it, stops nicotine, gambling, stealing, lying, cheating, fornication, adultery, prostitution, juvenile delinquency. I think of this whenever somebody talks about someone investigating us. Why investigate the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? They should subsidize him. He's cleaning up the mess that white men have made. He's saving the Government millions of dollars, taking black men off of welfare, showing them how to do something for themselves. And Mr. Muhammad teaches us love for our own kind. The white man has taught the black people in this country to hate themselves as inferior, to hate each other, to be divided against each other. Messenger Muhammad restores our love for our own kind, which enables us to work together in unity and harmony. He shows us how to pool our financial resources and our talents, then to work together toward a common objective. Among other things, we have small businesses in most major cities in this country, and we want to create many more. We are taught by Mr. Muhammad that it is very important to improve the black man's economy, and his thrift. But to do this, we must have land of our own. The brainwashed black man can never learn to stand on his own two feet until he is on his own. We must learn to become our own producers, manufacturers and traders; we must have industry of our own, to employ our own. The white man resists this because he wants to keep the black man under his thumb and jurisdiction in white society. He wants to keep the black man always dependent and begging--for jobs, food, clothes, shelter, education. The white man doesn't want to lose somebody to be supreme over. He wants to keep the black man where he can be watched and retarded.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Mr. Muhammad teaches that as soon as we separate from the white man, we will learn that we can do without the white man just as he can do without us. The white man knows that once black men get off to themselves and learn they can do for themselves, the black man's full potential will explode and he will surpass the white man.
Playboy interview, regarding the ambition of the Black Muslims
Attributed

Love, Men, Hate, People

“I had, to be sure, been drawn into economics when the General Theory was an exciting revelation for students hungry for explanation and remedy of the Great Depression. At the same time, I was uncomfortable with several aspects of Keynes’ theory, and I sought to improve what would now be called the microfoundations of his macroeconomic relations.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View" (1993)

Time

“In our society today, when we teach the righteous way of life based upon the Theory of judo which embodies the principles of continuous improvement of society, then this righteous life provides a basis of definite proof of this principle and unifies the peoples' way of thinking. Various religious and learned points of view are then made abundantly clear.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Kodokan Magazine (1974)

Life, People, Way, Thinking

“It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

Way

“I smile and start to count on my fingers: One, people are good. Two, every conflict can be removed. Three, every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple. Four, every situation can be substantially improved; even the sky is not the limit. Five, every person can reach a full life. Six, there is always a win / win solution. Shall I continue to count?”

Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1947–2011) Israeli physicist and management guru

Goldratt, E. M. (2008). The Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Choice_(philosophy_book) North River Press. p. 157

Life, People, Smile, Personality

“[W]hile man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind; and therefore, without entering upon the details of the question, I will simply say, that I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Commercial version

Question

“If by "democracy" we mean the form which the Third Estate as such wishes to impart to public life as a whole, it must be concluded that democracy and plutocracy are the same thing under the two aspects of wish and actuality, theory and practice, knowing and doing. It is the tragic comedy of the world‑ improvers' and freedom‑ teachers' desperate fight against money that they are ipso facto assisting money to be effective. Respect for the big number—expressed in the principles of equality for all, natural rights, and universal suffrage—is just as much a class‑ ideal of the unclassed as freedom of public opinion (and more particularly freedom of the press) is so. These are ideals, but in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune. The representatives of the ideas look at one side only, while the representatives of money operate with the other. The concepts of Liberalism and Socialism are set in effective motion only by money. … There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money—and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Source: Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, pp. 401–02 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.49906/page/n893/mode/2up Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Welthistorische Perspektiven (1922) The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

Life, Money, World, Democracy

“The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to William H Herndon (10 July 1848)
1840s

Way

“I learnt to see philosophical systems in the context of the social milieu which produced them. I therefore learnt to look for social contention in philosophical systems. It is of course possible to see the history of philosophy in diverse ways, each way of seeing it being in fact an illumination of the type of problem dealt with in this branch of human thought. It is possible, for instance, to look upon philosophy as a series of abstract systems. When philosophy is so seen, even moral philosophers, with regrettable coyness, say that their preoccupation has nothing to do with life. They say that their concern is not to name moral principles or to improve anybody's character, but narrowly to elucidate the meaning of terms used in ethical discourse, and to determine the status of moral principles and ru1es, as regards the obligation which they impose upon us. When philosophy is regarded in the light of a series of abstract systems, it can be said to concern itself with two fundamental questions: first, the question 'what there is'; second, the question how 'what there is' may be explained. The answer to the first question has a number of aspects. It lays down a minimum number of general under which every item in the world can and must be brought. It does this without naming the items themselves, without furnishing us with an inventory, a roll-call of the items, the objects in the world. It specifies, not particu1ar objects, but the basic types of object. The answer further implies a certain reductionism; for in naming only a few basic types as exhausting all objects in the world, it brings object directly under one of the basic types.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Source: Consciencism (1964), Philosophy In Retrospect, pp. 5-6.

Life, World, Way, History

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

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

Quoted in Steve Jobs, the Journey Is the Reward (1988) by Jeffrey S. Young ISBN 155802378X
1980s

Business

“What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. […] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. […] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

" Beasts https://books.google.it/books?id=WQpJAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA8", in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9 Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Friendship, Dogs, Feeling, Spring

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

25b
Plato, Apology

Happiness, People, Thinking, Animals

“I studied economics and made it my career for two reasons. The subject was and is intellectually fascinating and challenging, particularly to someone with taste and talent for theoretical reasoning and quantitative analysis. At the same time it offered the hope, as it still does, that improved understanding could better the lot of mankind.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"James Tobin - Biographical" (1981)

Hope, Understanding, Study, Time

“[W]orking men are the basis of all governments. That remark is due to them more than to any other class, for the reason that there are more of them than of any other class. And as your address is presented to me not only on behalf of workingmen, but especially of Germans, I may say a word as to classes. I hold the value of life is to improve one's condition. Whatever is calculated to advance the condition of the honest, struggling laboring man, so far as my judgment will enable me to judge of a correct thing. I am for that thing.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Gazette version

Life, Men

“To say the truth, whatever improvement private study may produce, there is still a peculiar advantage attendant on our appearance in the forum, where the light is different and there is an appearance of real responsibility quite different from the fictitious cases of the schools. If we estimate the two separately, practice without learning will be of more avail than learning without practice.”
Et hercule quantumlibet secreta studia contulerint, est tamen proprius quidam fori profectus, alia lux, alia veri discriminis facies, plusque, si separes, usus sine doctrina quam citra usum doctrina valeat.

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

Book XII, Chapter VI, 4; translation by Rev. John Selby Watson
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

Truth, School, Study, Light

“The last chapter modeled technological progress as an increase in the number of types of products, N. In this chapter, we allow for improvements in the quality or productivity of each type. This approach has come to be known as the Schumpeterian approach to endogenous growth. We can think of increases in N as basic innovations that amount to dramatically new kinds of goods or methods of production. In contrast, increases in the quality of the existing products involve a continuing series of improvements and refinements of goods and techniques.”

Xavier Sala-i-Martin (1962) Catalan economist

Robert J. Barro, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Economic growth 2nd ed. (2004), Ch. 7 : Technological Change: Schumpeterian Models of Quality Ladders

Thinking

“[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy."”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"How The Churches Have Retarded Progress"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Happiness, People, World, Way

“Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

Source: Out Of The Crisis (1982), p. 23 (Point 5 from the "Condensation of the 14 Points for Management" presented in Chapter 2)

“And this is something that I emphasize wherever I go -- democracy does not stop on Election Day. For a real democracy to work, and for a society to thrive and continually improve, it requires that people continue to participate. And there have to be laws in place to protect that space and facilitate people’s ability to participate.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama in Conversation with Members of Civil Society at YALI Regional Leadership Center, Kenyatta University,Nairobi, Kenya https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/26/remarks-president-obama-conversation-members-civil-society (July 26, 2015) 2015

People, Law, Democracy

“Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

First Inaugural Address (4 March 1829).
1820s

Knowledge

“Activities that improve human capabilities [can be divided into] five major categories: (1) health facilities and services, broadly conceived to include all expenditures that affect the life expectancy, strength and stamina, and the vigor and vitality of a people; (2) On-the job training, including old-style apprenticeship organized by firms; (3) formally organized education at elementary, secondary and higher levels; (4) study programs for adults that are not organized by firms, including extension programs in agriculture; (5) Migration of individuals and families to adjust to changing job opportunities.”

Theodore Schultz (1902–1998) American economist

Source: "Investment in human capital," 1961, p. 9

Life, People, Health, Education

“The new electoral system gives us a powerful tool to improve the work of the entire Soviet system, in order to eliminate bureaucratic phenomena, shortcomings and deformations in Soviet organizations. And these shortcomings are, as you know, very real. Our Party organizations must be prepared for the election campaign. In the elections, they must deal with hostile propaganda and hostile candidates.”

Andrei Zhdanov (1896–1948) Soviet politician

Zhdanov in 1937. Translated from Swedish in the article Om socialismens demokratiska erfarenheter http://www.kommunisterna.org/politik/texter/socialismens-lardomar/om-socialismens-demokratiska-erfarenheter by Anders Carlsson.

Hostility

“Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur…”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

“Human behavior is predictable, but, as in physical science, accurate prediction hinges on the correctness of underlying theoretical assumptions. There is, in fact, no prediction without theory; all managerial decisions and actions rest on assumptions about behavior. If we adopt the posture of the ostrich with respect to our assumptions under the mistaken idea that we are thus “being ‘practical,” or that “management is an art,” our progress with respect to the human side of enterprise will indeed be slow. Only as we examine and test our theoretical assumptions can we hope to make them more adequate, to remove inconsistencies, and thus to improve our ability to predict.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 11 (2006; 13)

Hope, Art, Behavior, Idea

“The plan of "counting the chickens before they are hatched" is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age.”

P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) American showman and businessman

Ch. 10: "Let hope predominate but be not too visionary" http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting_chap11.html Art of Money Getting (1880)

Age, Error

“We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. […] Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

Life, Death, Children, People

“When I had felt compelled by increasing knowledge of nature to revise some of my traditional articles of religious faith, I was delighted to find that these changes had not modified in any essential respects my system of ethics. As I expressed it in my presidential address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1937:
"The ethics of science regards the search for truth as one of the highest duties of man; it regards noble human character as the finest product of evolution; it considers the service of all mankind as the universal good; it teaches that human nature and humane nurture may be improved, that reason may replace unreason, cooperation supplement competition, and the progress of the human race through future ages be promoted by intelligence and goodwill."”

Edwin Grant Conklin (1863–1952) American biologist and zoologist

Edwin Grant Conklin, in: p. 74 Thirteen Americans: their spiritual autobiographies https://archive.org/stream/religionandcivil000911mbp#page/n91/mode/2up Louis Finkelstein (ed.), 1953, p. 74

Truth, Age, Faith, Search

“We cannot afford merely to sit down and deplore the evils of city life as inevitable, when cities are constantly growing, both absolutely and relatively. We must set ourselves vigorously about the task of improving them; and this task is now well begun.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

"The City in Modern Life", Literary Essays (vol. 12 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed., 1926), p. 226. Book review in The Atlantic Monthly (April 1895)
1890s

Life, Evil

“I doubt not but one great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports, and trifle away all their time insipidly, is, because they have found their curiosity baulk'd, and their inquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and respect, and their questions answered, as they shuold, to their satisfaction; I doubt not but that they would have taken more pleasure in learning, and improving their knowledge, wherein there would still be newness and variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same play and play-things.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 118
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Children, Pleasure, Question, Knowledge

“The interventionists do not approach the study of economic matters with scientific disinterestedness. Most of them are driven by an envious resentment against those whose incomes are larger than their own. This bias makes it impossible for them to see things as they really are. For them the main thing is not to improve the conditions of the masses, but to harm the entrepreneurs and capitalists even if this policy victimizes the immense majority of the people.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)

People, Study

“[New classical economics] was the starting point for a rightward shift in economics that went against the idea that monetary policy can improve macroeconomic outcomes.”

Janet Yellen (1946) American economist and professor

The Hand on the Lever (2014)

Idea

“I don't think it is inevitable that the world comes together in a common culture and common understanding. But overall, I am hopeful. And the reason I'm hopeful is, if you look at the trajectory of history, humanity has slowly improved.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)
Context: I believe that under the surface all people are the same. […] people are all essentially the same. Similar hopes, similar dreams, similar strengths, similar weaknesses. But we're also all bound by history and culture and habits. And so conflicts arise, in part, because of some weaknesses in human nature. When we feel threatened, then we like to strike out against people who are not like us. When change is happening too quickly, and we try to hang on to those things that we think could give us a solid foundation. And sometimes the organizing principles are around issues like race, or religion. When there are times of scarcity, then people can turn on each other. And so I don't underestimate the very real challenges that we continue to face, and I don't think it is inevitable that the world comes together in a common culture and common understanding. But overall, I am hopeful. And the reason I'm hopeful is, if you look at the trajectory of history, humanity has slowly improved.

World, Hope, History, Understanding

“Our efforts to ensure our shared security must be matched by a commitment to improve governance. Those things are connected. Good governance is one of the best weapons against terrorism and instability.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: Our efforts to ensure our shared security must be matched by a commitment to improve governance. Those things are connected. Good governance is one of the best weapons against terrorism and instability. Our fight against terrorist groups, for example, will never be won if we fail to address legitimate grievances that terrorists may try to exploit, if we don’t build trust with all communities, if we don’t uphold the rule of law. There’s a saying, and I believe it is true -- if we sacrifice liberty in the name of security, we risk losing both.

Effort

“Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Fragmentary manuscript of a speech on free labor (17 September 1859?) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:141?rgn=div1;view=fulltext; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), vol. 3, p. 463 1850s Context: We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twentyfive years ago, I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own account to-day; and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.

God, Effort, Parting

“There are those… who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Speech at the Innauguration of the Aga Khan Baug, Versova, India (17 January 1983) http://ismaili.net/speech/s830117.html  Context: There are those... who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot. Unless these unfortunates can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink back into renewed apathy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark.

World, Motivation

“Are we doing the right thing when we provide aid to a country, but the country is still ruled by a small elite and maybe it’s not getting down to the people? Are we doing the right thing when we engage in training a military to become more professional, but maybe the military is still engaging in repressive activity? If we’re not open to those criticisms, then we won’t get better, we won’t improve.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)
Context: I’m very proud of the United States. I believe that the United States is a force for good around the world. But I wouldn’t be a good President if I don’t listen to criticism of our policies and stay open to what other countries say about us. Sometimes I think those criticisms are unfair. Sometimes I think people like to complain about the United States because we’re doing too much. Sometimes they complain because they’re doing too little. Every problem around the world, why isn’t the United States doing something about it. Sometimes there are countries that don’t take responsibility for themselves and they want us to fix it. And then when we do try to fix it, they say why are you meddling in our affairs. Yes, it’s kind of frustrating sometimes. But the fact that we are getting these criticisms means that we’re constantly thinking, okay, is this how we should apply this policy? Are we doing the right thing when we provide aid to a country, but the country is still ruled by a small elite and maybe it’s not getting down to the people? Are we doing the right thing when we engage in training a military to become more professional, but maybe the military is still engaging in repressive activity? If we’re not open to those criticisms, then we won’t get better, we won’t improve.

People, Training, Country

“I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience — to reject all progress — all improvement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)

Light

“America moves forward only when we do so together, and that the responsibility of improving this union remains the task of us all.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)
Context: The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. But they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party. They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can. For they know that America moves forward only when we do so together, and that the responsibility of improving this union remains the task of us all.

“The methods of science aren't foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

Postmodernism and truth (1998)
Context: The methods of science aren't foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered. The methods of science, like everything else under the sun, are themselves objects of scientific scrutiny, as method becomes methodology, the analysis of methods. Methodology in turn falls under the gaze of epistemology, the investigation of investigation itself — nothing is off limits to scientific questioning. The irony is that these fruits of scientific reflection, showing us the ineliminable smudges of imperfection, are sometimes used by those who are suspicious of science as their grounds for denying it a privileged status in the truth-seeking department — as if the institutions and practices they see competing with it were no worse off in these regards. But where are the examples of religious orthodoxy being simply abandoned in the face of irresistible evidence? Again and again in science, yesterday's heresies have become today's new orthodoxies. No religion exhibits that pattern in its history.

Science, Perfection

“A correct theory is the first step towards improvement”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 44.
Context: A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.

“You cannot allow your desire to be a winner to be diminished by achieving success before and I believe there is room for improvement in every sportsman.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Success

“The day you think there is no improvements to be made is a sad one for any player.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Sadness, Thinking

“The only hope for developing a new civilization is to accept responsibility for improving our lives through knowledge, understanding, and a deeper comprehension of humanity’s relationship to natural processes of evolution. Our future is determined by effort we put forth to achieve this transition.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Hope, Understanding, Nature, Knowledge

“We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 °C. This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2 °C limit, then it means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal.”

Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Speech by Greta Thunberg, climate activist https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/avdb/video/speech-greta-thunberg-climate-activist to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels (21 February 2019) Cited in No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Penguin Books, 2019, pages 37 and 38-39 (ISBN 9780141991740). 2019, European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

Children, People, Making love, Relation ships

“Avoid constantly trying to adapt to situations, people, and other circumstances that have no value to your future. The phenomenon of always attempting to please and alter behavior is more likely to be unsuccessful then to enhance your life. Adapt by continuing to learn and improve your knowledge.

1980”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

Life, People, Behavior, Knowledge

“Life has improved, and now as never before the doors to a happy and cultured life for all the peoples of our Union stand wide open. We are already enjoying the first fruits of our victory and we see that an unparalleled rise in the standard of living and culture of all the peoples of the Soviet Union awaits us. And in spite of all this, we have not yet seen the last of people who in their blind hatred of the new world are planning the seizure and dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Well, what shall we say to them? It is true that we appeared in the world without the permission of these gentlemen, and undoubtedly against their wishes.... This means that the time has come when the old world must make way for the new.”

Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) Soviet politician and diplomat

Speech (10 January 1930) as quoted in The Communist International (1936) Vol. 13

Life, Happiness, People, World

“First, the party’s leadership over all tasks must be adhered to, and the party’s leadership must be incessantly strengthened and improved.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in " 4 Takeaways from Xi Jinping’s Speech Defending Communist Party Control https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/world/asia/xi-china-speech-takeaways.html" The New York Times 2010s

“As we were very much pressed for time we were unable to see as much of the jail as we wanted to. We had an impression that we had been shown the brighter side of jail life. Nonetheless, two facts stood out. One was that we had actually seen desirable and radical improvements over the old system prevailing even now in most countries and the second and even more important fact was the mentality of the prison officials, and presumably the higher officials of the government also, in regard to jails. Actual conditions may or may not be good but the general principles laid down for jails are certainly far in advance of anything we had known elsewhere in practice. Anyone with a knowledge of prisons in India and of the barbarous way in which handcuffs, fetters and other punishments are used will appreciate the difference. The governor of the prison in Moscow who took us round was all the time laying stress on the human side of jail life, and how it was their endeavour to keep this in the front and not to make the prisoner feel in any way dehumanised or outcasted. I wish we in India would remember this wholesome principle and practise it in our daily lives even outside jail…. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that to be in a Russian prison is far more preferable than to be a worker in an Indian factory, whose lot is 10 to 11 hours work a day and then to live in a crowded and dark and airless tenement, hardly fit for an animal. The mere fact that there are some prisons like the ones we saw is in itself something for the Soviet Government to be proud of.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Life, Making love, Way, Feeling

“Japan had come to terms with Russia because of her difficulties, but this did not mean approval of communism. Communism meant the end of emperor-worship, and feudalism and the exploitation of the masses by the ruling class, and indeed almost everything that the existing order stood for… But communism is the outcome of widespread misery due to social conditions, and unless these conditions are improved, mere repression can be no remedy. There is a terrible misery in Japan at present. The peasantry, as in China and India, are crushed under a tremendous burden of debt. Taxation, especially because of heavy military expenditure and war needs, is very heavy. Reports come of starving peasants trying to live on grass and roots, and of selling even their children. The middle classes are also in a bad way owing to unemployment and suicides have increased.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

War, Bad luck, Children, Way

“The moment one constructs a device to carry into practice a crude idea, he finds himself unavoidably engrossed with the details of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle.… I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Making love, Imagination, Idea, Change

“For every person who perishes from the effects of a stimulant, at least a thousand die from the consequences of drinking impure water. This precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likewise the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies. The germs of destruction it conveys are enemies all the more terrible as they perform their fatal work unperceived. They seal our doom while we live and enjoy. The majority of people are so ignorant or careless in drinking water, and the consequences of this are so disastrous, that a philanthropist can scarcely use his efforts better than by endeavoring to enlighten those who are thus injuring themselves. By systematic purification and sterilization of the drinking water the human mass would be very considerably increased. It should be made a rigid rule which might be enforced by law to boil or to sterilize otherwise the drinking water in every household and public place. The mere filtering does not afford sufficient security against infection. All ice for internal uses should be artificially prepared from water thoroughly sterilized. The importance of eliminating germs of disease from the city water is generally recognized, but little is being done to improve the existing conditions, as no satisfactory method of sterilizing great quantities of water has yet been brought forward. By improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of the important question.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Life, Death, Happiness, People

“As we enhance the lives of others, protect our environment, and work toward abundance, all our lives can become richer and more secure. If these values were put into practice, it would enable all of us to achieve a much higher standard of living within a relatively short period of time; a standard of living that would be continuously improved.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Designing the Future (2007)

Time

“The stress which exists in the world today is a result of competition and fear, the fear of failure, disease, death, war, calamity, and economic disruption. The pressure that these fears put on humanity inevitably results in psychosomatic diseases. The cure lies in a re-establishing of equilibrium. When we establish equilibrium in our lives through a restructuring of our political, economic and social institutions, we will find that the health of humanity will improve dramatically. We will not have to spend enormous sums of money maintaining health. In fact, illness prevention will become the norm. Disease can generally be prevented more easily than it can be cured.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Death, Money, War, Health

“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

“It is impossible to improve any process until it is standardized. If the process is shifting from here to there, then any improvement will just be one more variation that is occasionally used and mostly ignored.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

“Without standards, there can be no improvement.”

Taiichi Ohno (1912–1990) Japanese businessman and engineer

“We live to improve, or we live in vain.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s

“Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. … (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or — like Proudhon — see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: First Manuscript – Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Religion, Law, Time, Horse

“But I believe that engagement is a more powerful force than isolation, and the changes we are making can help improve the lives of the Cuban people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Town Hall meeting with Young Leaders of the Americas (April 2015)

People, Change, Help

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke?”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism. The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 13 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala

Men

“We've always been under sanctions. Even under all those sanctions we have made the growth thus far, so I am not afraid.… If you wish to lift the sanctions then lift them, or if you wish to impose sanctions then impose them. I do not care. We will improve our economy further no matter what.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Source: Remarks to Jimmy Carter (June 1994), as recalled during his final policy meeting and shown in the KCTV documentary The Year 1994

“Nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Memory, Forgetting

“Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden (1854)

Animals, Parting

“Each of you is perfect the way you are… and you can use a little improvement.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Way, Perfection

“Expert advice on improving ur relationship -
4A's - attention, appreciation,
affection & attraction.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

“There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Variant: There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations
Source: Nineteen Minutes

Happiness, Way, Reality, Happy

“And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Reading

“Some quotations," said Zellaby, "are greatly improved by lack of context.”

John Wyndham book The Midwich Cuckoos

Source: The Midwich Cuckoos

“Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Education

“As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Art, Perfection

“When bad fortune occurs, the unresourceful, unimaginative man looks about him to attach the blame to someone else; the resolute accepts misfortune and endeavors to survive, mature, and improve because of it.”

Anne McCaffrey Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Source: Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern 1983

“He said you couldn't pretend the terrible things in life didn't happen. You can't clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It's how you learn. And try to make improvements.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Life, Learning

“You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Problem, Silence, Time

“If you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Men, Housing

“We cannot improve the world if we are conformed to the world.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

World

“For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

Children

“What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?”

Chuck Klosterman book Downtown Owl

Source: Downtown Owl

Lying

“It is especially difficult for modern people to conceive that our modern, scientific age might not be an improvement over the prescientific period.”

Michael Crichton Timeline

Source: Timeline

People, Age

“What kind of scholar was I? Or was I a scholar at all? My ignorance was enormous. Beside it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger for learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”

Louis L'Amour book The Walking Drum

Source: The Walking Drum (1984), Ch. 25

Hunger, Books, World, Understanding

“If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Money, Happiness, Thinking

“All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill (June 23, 1925), His complete speeches, 1897–1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James, Chelsea House ed., vol. 4 (1922–1928), p. 3706. During a debate with Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden.
Often misquoted as: To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Change, Perfection, Wise

“… saying that you don’t have time to improve your thoughts and your life is like saying you don’t have time to stop for gas because you’re too busy driving. Eventually it will catch up with you.” - The Monk who sold his Ferrari”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Life, Business, Time

“Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better.”

Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer

Life, World, Imagination, Change

“My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Lie, Sense

“Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Love, Life

“We improve ourselves by victory over our self. There must be contests, and you must win.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Victory

“Almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

“Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 66

“Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: The Use of Lateral Thinking

Way

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Learning

“Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

From Davis' running commentary in Whitney Stine's Mother Goddam https://books.google.com/books?id=kxs_AAAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Attempt+the+impossible+in+order+to+improve+your+work.%22 (1974), p. 123 ISBN 0-8015-5184-6

“… the change was adjustment without improvement.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Change

Quotes about improvement page 2

Quotes about improvement
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