Quotes about improvement
page 3

“The city atmosphere certainly has improved her. Some way she doesn't seem like the same woman.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Way

“Fiction is an improvement on life”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Life

“The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Imagination

“If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Coffee, Drink, Understanding

“Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. IV, Ch. 8 (1839).

Fear, Past, Future, Heart

“Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker

Personality

“The demon bared its greenish fangs. "This is my true form. An ugly surprise for you, I suppose."
"I daresay it's an improvement," said Will. "You weren't much to look at before, and at least the horns are dramatic.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Source: Society of the Spectacle (1967), Ch. 8, sct. 207 (confer Comte de Lautréamont, Poésies II, 1870).

Idea, Falseness

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 25
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Context: I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do. I think that kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes the end is the beginning. Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. <!-- p. 304

World, Heart

“investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. it will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams Reaching Your Destiny

Life

“It's not easy being so frightened of everything. And when I think of how much I've improved in the last year, I wonder when I'll ever get finished with making changes and be really grown up.”

Paula Danziger book There's a Bat in Bunk Five

Source: There's a Bat in Bunk Five

Thinking, Change

“It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.”

Colson Whitehead book The Intuitionist

Source: The Intuitionist

Failure, Perfection

“The never-ending task of self improvement.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Life, Way, Study, Dead

“You just said you were sorry."

…

"I was only apologizing," he said stiffly, "for startling you. The applause was to compliment you on the improvement in your life-saving techniques since the last time you-”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

Life, Time

“There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.”

Aldous Huxley book Time Must Have a Stop

Time Must Have a Stop (1944)

Universe, Motivational

“Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Reading

“I want my room to smell just like this." Iggy inhaled deeply as the scents flame-broiled burgers and hot french fries wafted around us.
'it would be an improvement.' I agreed.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

“What's measured improves”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

“If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Life

“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Win told me that one isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Mountain

“There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Source: Espresso Tales

Women

“Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

“Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

[, 23 November 2004]”

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

“and in some of the people of the town and community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were somewhere else.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

People, Disease, Way, Communication

“First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

“This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

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John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Source: Adams-Jefferson Letters

“What gets measured gets improved.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class

“Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

Og Mandino (1923–1996) American author

Loss, Time, Heartbreaking, Powerful

“There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.”

Peter Newmark (1916–2011) English translation scholar

Source: Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

Knowledge, Perfection

“What we call Life is a condition of the soul. And the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, Soul

“Self improvement is masturbation…”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Life, Learning

“What's really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.”

William Albert Allard (1937) Photographer

“Stop being so fruitlessly busy and. Use your. Reach out into the unknown and dream of how you can enlarge your experience and improve your mind and your soul and your world.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

World, Dreams, Soul, Business

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life

“Commit yourself to constant improvement. Commit yourself to quality. Be persistent, persistent, persistent… and have a grateful heart!”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Heart

“We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: Six Thinking Hats Revised Edition

Way, Problem

“Exercise improves your sex life.
Ranger to Stephanie”

Janet Evanovich Three to Get Deadly

Source: Three to Get Deadly

Life, Sex, Exercises

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Men

“Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are

“Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Wisdom, Problem, Time, Tea

“A satisfactory translation is not always possible, but a good translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved. (Newmark)”

Peter Newmark (1916–2011) English translation scholar

Source: Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

“In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

Books, World, Color, Sense

“I recognize that knitting can improve my mood in trying circumstances”

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer

Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

Mood

“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Time, Past, Future, Weather

“Politics is not about big money or power games; it's about the improvement of people's lives”

Paul Wellstone (1944–2002) American politician

Money, People, Game

“One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Age

“He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.”

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

Soul, Time

“Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) English dramatist, poet and translator

Love, Money

“All good and true book-lovers practice the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed… No book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over.”

Eugene Field (1850–1895) American writer

Source: The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac

Books, Dreams, Lovers, Reading

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."
-- The Alchemist”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Secret

“Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Silence

“I’d planned to kill them, too.” When Néomi glared up at him, he raised his chained hands.
“Past tense. See? Already I’m improving.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Past

“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Friendship, Happiness, Joy, Happy

“How we are almost nothing. We think, in our youth, we are the centre of the universe, but we simply respond, go this way or that by accident, survive or improve by the luck of the draw, with little choice or determination on our part.”

Michael Ondaatje book Divisadero

Source: Divisadero

Youth, Way, Thinking, Universe

“Do not let your zeal for the cause of democracy deceive you as to the fact of the opaque ignorance in which the great bulk of the people of England are wrapt. If you write for the masses politically, and write soundly and honestly, they will not be able at present to appreciate you, and consequently will not support you…There is no remedy for all this but improved education. Such as the tail and the body are, such will be the character of the head. Nature does not produce such monsters as an ignorant or vicious community, and virtuous and wise leaders. In Scotland you are better off because you are better educated. The great body of the English peasants are not a jot advanced in intellect since the days of their Saxon ancestors. I hope you will join us in a cry for schoolmasters as a first step to Radicalism.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to W. Tait (17 August 1838), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 127.
1830s

People, Education, Hope, Democracy

“Because Wikipedia is a process, not a product, it replaces guarantees offered by institutions with probabilities supported by process: if enough people care enough about an article to read it, then enough people will care enough to improve it, and over time this will lead to a large enough body of good enough work to begin to take both availability and quality of articles for granted, and to integrate Wikipedia into daily use by millions.”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

Source: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (2008), p. 139-140

People, Support, Time, Reading

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Pleasure, World, Peace, Law

“I would like to thank the crowd, it was unbelievable, the support helps you push through those tough times. You need challenges in every game, they improve you as a cricketers…I don't know what to say, I am overwhelmed by”

Virat Kohli (1988) Indian cricket player

After guiding India to the World T20 semifinals, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Virat Kohli Proves His Era Has Begun, After Guiding India Into World T20 Semifinals" http://sports.ndtv.com/icc-world-twenty20-2016/news/256920-virat-kohli-proves-his-era-has-begun-after-guiding-india-into-world-t20-semifinals, March 27, 2016.

Game, Support, Time, Help

“All we are now concerned with is the search for “new and improved” version of whatever means are already available for attaining goals such means make possible. The value of the goals themselves is irrelevant … What counts is doing things better than before. Whether such things are worth doing in the first place is no longer a question.”

Alexander Nehamas (1946) Professor of philosophy

Foreword to Alain Renaut, The Era of the Individual (1999), p. xi.

Search, Question

“Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection. […] Darwinism is not the theory of capricious change that Koestler imagines. Random variation may be the raw material of change, but natural selection builds good design by rejecting most variants while accepting and accumulating the few that improve adaptation to local environments.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Panda's Thumb

"Double Trouble", pp. 38–40
The Panda's Thumb (1980)

Books, Hope, Imagination, Nature

“At first it was for health and athletic performance but it also became about ethics and the environment. My strength increased. I put 20lbs on my dumbell benchpress (10lbs each arm) in only 2 weeks and my endurance improved. Running is much easier now. I have more energy and recovery is better too. The whole protein myth is complete nonsense. Plant-based foods have plenty. … As an athlete you want your endothelium, the inner lining of your arteries, to be as healthy as possible. It is responsible for nitric oxide production which transports oxygen to the muscles and dilates the arteries. More oxygen means better performance whether it be strength or endurance. Plant-based foods are inherently loaded with antioxidants too, which aid athletes in recovery. If someone wants to be the best athlete they can be they need to fuel their body with the best diet available and that is a whole food, plant-based diet.”

James Wilks (1978) English martial artist

“James Wilks,” interview with Great Vegan Athletes (2013) http://www.greatveganathletes.com/content/james-wilks.

Health, Food

“Whether you know what you're doing or not, efficiency & style are your only improvement opportunities.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

16 September 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/24608868849 <br class="br"> Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following: amnesty, open borders, and lower wages. Immigration reform should mean something else entirely: it should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens. But if we are going to make our immigration system work, then we have to be prepared to talk honestly and without fear about these important and sensitive issues.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Immigration speech (31 August 2016)
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-immigration-address-transcript-227614

Life, Fear, Law

“Though I may not be able to in the present instance to mark the limit at which further improvement will stop, I can very easily mention a point at which it will not arrive.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter IX, paragraph 8, lines 14-16

“All items that can be copied, both tangible and intangible, adhere to the law of inverted pricing and become cheaper as they improve.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Law

“We hope and pray that by our efforts today and in the future the tenor of debate in this august house will greatly improve to carry the country forward in peace, harmony and reconciliation between all the races.”

Josefa Iloilo (1920–2011) President of Fiji

Speech opening Parliament, 1 August 2005 (excerpts)

Peace, Hope, Effort, Future

“Franklin is a good type of our American manhood. Although not the wealthiest or the most powerful, he is undoubtedly, in the versatility of his genius and achievements, the greatest of our self-made men. The simple yet graphic story in the Autobiography of his steady rise from humble boyhood in a tallow-chandler shop, by industry, economy, and perseverance in self-improvement, to eminence, is the most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men. It is in itself a wonderful illustration of the results possible to be attained in a land of unequaled opportunity by following Franklin's maxims.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Written by Frank Woodworth Pine in his introduction to the 1916 publication of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm. Pine, F.W. (editor). Henry Holt and Company via Gutenberg Press. (1916). Introduction. <br class="br">The Autobiography (1818), The Autobiography (1916)

Men, History, Perseverance

“I was… informed, that Baptista Porta, and one or two more, had written somewhat of that Subject, upon this Information I was willing to see whether I might from any of them find any Directions, that might help mee, if I should afterwards have the like Occasion: But I found very little in any of them for my Purpose. Their Businesse being for the most Part, onely to shew how to write in Cipher, (which was not my Work,) and that Things so written were beyond the Skill of Men to decipher. Onely in Baptista Porta (who alone if I mistake not, hath written any Thing to Purpose about deciphering, and was it seemes famous in his Time for his Abilities that Way;) I found that there were some general Directions, such as were obvious from the Nature of the Thing, and which I had before of myself taken Notice of, and made use of so far as the Nature of an intricate Cipher would permit. But the Truth of it is, there are scarce any of his Rules, which the present Way of Cipher (which is now much improved, beyond what, it seemes, it was in his Days) doth not in a Manner wholly elude…”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

p, 125
An Essay on the Art of Decyphering (1737)

Men, Truth, Way, Nature

“One of the difficulties in thinking about software is its huge variety. A function definition in a spreadsheet cell is software. A smartphone app is software. The flight management system for an Airbus A380 is software. A word processor is software. We shouldn't expect a single discipline of software engineering to cover all of these, any more than we expect a single discipline of manufacturing to cover everything from the Airbus A380 to the production of chocolate bars, or a single discipline of social organization to cover everything from the United Nations to a kindergarten. Improvement in software engineering must come bottom-up, from intense specialized attention to particular products.”

Michael A. Jackson (1936) British computer scientist

Michael A. Jackson in: K. De Grave (ed.) Formalism & Intuition in Software Development; A conversation with Michael A. Jackson conducted by Edgar G. Daylight and Bas van Vlijmen. 2015

Thinking

“Let me formulate the artistic disposition as follows: it is reacting with one’s ideal to the flaw in oneself and in the world, and somehow making that reaction formation solid enough in the medium so that it indeed becomes an improved bit of real world for others.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 176.

World

“Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.”

Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 11

Happiness

“The first commercial licensing of where CP/M was used to monitor programs in the Octopus network. Little attention was paid to CP/M for about a year. In my spare time, I worked to improve overall facilities… By this time, CP/M had been adapted for four different controllers….
In 1976”

Gary Kildall (1942–1994) Computer scientist and entrepreneur

Gary Kildall (1980) " The History of CP/M, The Evolution of an Industry: One Person's Viewpoint http://www.retrotechnology.com/dri/CPM_history_kildall.txt." Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia Vol. 5 (1) (41). p. 6-7

Time

“Things oughtn’t to be the way they are, altogether. But letting a madman burn down the barn is no way to improve them.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Source: Rogue Dragon (1965), Chapter V (p. 49)

Way

“There are still people who discuss industrialization as… an alternative to agricultural improvement… this approach is without meaning in the West Indian Islands. There is no choice… between industry and agriculture. The islands need as large agriculture as possible… It is not … that agriculture cannot continue to develop if industry is developed … the opposite is true: agriculture cannot… yield a reasonable standard of living unless new jobs are created off the land”

W. Arthur Lewis (1915–1991) Saint Lucain economist

Lewis (1950; 831-2) as cited in: Mark Figueroa. "Rethinking Caribbean agriculture, re-evaluating Arthur Lewis misunderstood perspective." (2008).

People

“For those who labor, I propose to improve unemployment insurance, to expand minimum wage benefits, and by the repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to make the labor laws in all our states equal to the laws of the 31 states which do not have tonight right-to-work measures. And I also intend to ask the Congress to consider measures which, without improperly invading state and local authority, will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest. The third path is the path of liberation. It is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives. A great nation is one which breeds a great people. A great people flower not from wealth and power, but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius. That alone is a Great Society. Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome. We can subdue and we can master these forces—bring increased meaning to our lives—if all of us, government and citizens, are bold enough to change old ways, daring enough to assault new dangers, and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, People, Law, Dreams

“A mother gave her children Aesop’s fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it’s much too childish and stupid. You can’t make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we’ve got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

“Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

Children, Books, Stupidity, Education

“After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant. No one, not even a university professor, really believes that.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1971.
1970s

Books, Education, Art, Universe

“The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book The Old Regime and the Revolution

Variant translation: The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform. <br class="br">Old Regime (1856), p. 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=N50aibeL8BAC&pg=PA214&vq=%22most+critical+moment+for+bad+governments%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 <br class="br">1850s and later

“I've always given everything for every team I've played for so that the ordinary fans, the people in the stadium, could identify with me. I owe a lot to the fans of Roma, Fiorentina and Argentina. They were the reason I played, my inspiration. I always worked hard to improve my game, to prove to myself that I could be one of the best for as long as possible. To be honest, I couldn’t care less what the others think.”

Gabriel Batistuta (1969) Argentine association football player

Batistuta's quiet goodbye, FIFA.com, 2006-08-13, 11 July 2005 http://fifa.com/en/news/feature/0,1451,108450,00.html,

People, Game, Thinking

“A great deal of the thinking here has been influenced by cybernetics and information theory, though this has been used as much to extend the scope of closed-system as to improve the sophistication of open system formulations. It was von Bertalanffy (1950) who, in terms of the general transport equation which he introduced, first fully disclosed the importance of openness or closedness to the environment as a means of distinguishing living organisms from inanimate objects.”

Fred Emery (1925–1997) Australian psychologist

Source: The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments (1963), p. 22.

Thinking

“The major obstacle and most difficult challenge in pursuit of a genuinely loving and caring relationship is to overcome the seductive powers and the addiction to the content approach to entering, creating, and maintaining it. The elusive golden thread of understanding lies in the how, and not the what. Specifically, as gender polarization in a relationship decreases, the experience of it improves. Without that rebalancing, even the most perfect content will unravel increasingly. Once the process is balanced, the magic of having ideal content is no longer necessary. The rebalancing process which creates a relationship free of polarizing gender defenses is clearly difficult and threatening initially in the same way that giving up an addiction seems to be. Once achieved however, a relationship free of distortion, false illusions, resentment, and hopelessness truly becomes possible.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

What Men Still Don't Know About Transforming Their Relationships, pp. 194–198
What Men Still Don't Know About Women, Relationships, and Love (2007)

Love, Way, Understanding, Perfection

“Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant little to the wealthy. The rich in ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing — running servants replaced running water. Television and radio — the patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading artists as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. They would have welcomed the improvements in transportation and in medicine, but for the rest, the great achievements of western capitalism have rebounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 147

Life, Home, Water, Personality

“This reaction of man upon himself, is one of his noblest attributes; it offers, indeed, the finest field for the display of his activity. As a member of the social body, he is subjected every instant to the necessity of these causes, and pays them a regular tribute; but as a man, employing all the energy of his intellectual faculties, he in some measure masters these causes, and modifies their effects, thus constantly endeavouring to improve his condition.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves – our weaknesses, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 517.

Error

“Which are the arguments and how many are there? I must have an inbred urge toward symmetry. In canvassing for the principal ways of criticizing, assaulting, and ridiculing the three successive "progressive" thrusts of Marshall's story, I have come up with another triad: that is, with three principal reactive-reactionary theses, which I call the perversity thesis or thesis of the perverse effect, the futility thesis, and the jeopardy thesis. According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy. The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to “make a dent.””

Albert O. Hirschman book The Rhetoric of Reaction

Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the code of the proposed chafe or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment.
The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (1991), Ch. 1 : Two Hundred Years of Reactionary Rhetoric.

Way, Success

“It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book III, Chapter IV, p. 420.

“Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

Money, People, Housing

“When program developers are not territorial about their code and encourage others to look for bugs and potential improvements, progress speeds up dramatically.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

M. B. Douthwaite (2002) Enabling Innovation: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Fostering Technological Change. p. 116

Speed

“[T]he lectures… may be expected to remain tolerably commensurate to the state of the sciences for a much longer period; since, in investigations so intimately connected with mathematical principles, the essential improvements will always bear a very small proportion to the number of innovations. …the references, which it contains, are… sufficient to lead those, who may consult the passages quoted, to the works of every author of eminence that has treated of the respective subjects.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Quotes, Mathematics, Science

“Often it is the case that it takes ‘just a little’ to help and support people, so they can help themselves. I have met adults and children, men and women, whose living conditions are difficult for us to imagine, but every time I come away inspired by their strength and will to improve their lives and provide a better life for their children.”

Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark (1972) Crown Princess of Denmark

Speech at the opening of Danida’s 50th anniversary exhibition in Bella Center; quoted on royal website http://kongehuset.dk/Menu/materiale/taler/speech-by-hrh-the-crown-princess-at-the-launch-of-danidas-50th-anniversary-exhibition-in (16 March 2012)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; — all but the possibility of improvement.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

"The Vocation of the Scholar" (1794), as translated by William Smith, in The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889), Vol. I, Lecture IV, p. 188.
The Vocation of the Scholar (1794)

Loss

“The simple fact is that code quality tends to improve as you move between platforms… non-obvious bugs on Windows become VERY obvious in the Linux port and vice versa, and thus get fixed. So even the Windows gamers will win in all of this.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in, "Chat with Ryan Gordon" http://web.archive.org/web/20010502182109/http://www.descent-3.com/pad/news/16.html Chrono's Pad (2001-02-11)

“Knowing ourselves is one of the most important skills that we must possess if we hope to improve how we work and interact with others.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, p.6

Hope