Quotes About Improvement

I believe that Judaism was an improvement on polytheism; Christianity was an improvement on Judaism (to some degree and in some departments only); that Protestantism is an improvement on Catholicism; that Mormonism is an improvement on Protestantism. So I give Joseph Smith credit as an innovator and as a smart fellow.

Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at time. That's the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts.

We had the great depression, we had two world wars, we had the flu epidemic. We had oil shock. We had all these terrible things happen. But something about the American system unleashed more and of a potential to human beings over that hundred years so that we had a seven for one improvement in - there's never been any - I mean, you have centuries where if you've got a 1 percent improvement, then it's something. So we've got a great system. And we've got more productive capacity now than we ever have.

Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die. But when a business ceases to be creative, when it believes it has reached perfection and needs to do nothing but produce no improvement, no development, it is done

If we once admit that our life is here for the purpose of race-improvement, then we question any religion which does not improve the race, or the main force of which evaporates, as it were, directing our best efforts toward the sky.... Improvement in the human race is not accomplished by extracting any number of souls and placing them in heaven, or elsewhere. It must be established on earth, either through achievement in social service, or through better children.

As monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value, by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again; and may wore properly be said to adopt, than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame.

For centuries the most powerful argument for God's existence from the physical world was the so-called argument from design: Living things are so beautiful and elegant and so apparently purposeful, they could only have been made by an intelligent designer. But [Charles] Darwin provided a simpler explanation. His way is a gradual, incremental improvement starting from very simple beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, more adaptive perfection.

I think pressure can be an incentive toward improvement, and while I'm not denying that I feel some, I will also stress that it is self-inflicted and hopefully can be channeled in a healthy way.

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?"

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

Masonry, according to the general acceptation of the term, is an art founded on the principles of geometry, and devoted to the service and convenience of mankind. But Freemasonry, embracing a wider range and having a nobler object in view, namely, the cultivation and improvement of the human mind, may with more propriety be called a science, inasmuch as, availing itself of the terms of the former, it inculcates the principles of the purest morality, though its lessons are for the most part veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.

In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the '90s.

There's nothing like self-improvement to get your friends to like you for who you were.

The technologies that will be most successful will resonate with human behaviour instead of working against it. In fact, to solve the problems of delivering and assimilating new technology into the workplace, we must look to the way humans act and react. In the last 20 years, US industry has invested more than $1 trillion in technology, but has realised little improvement in the efficiency of its knowledge workers ­ and virtually none in their effectiveness. If we could solve the problems of the assimilation of new technology, the potential would be enormous.

Nobody can be saved from anything, unless they save themselves. It is hopeless doing things for people - it is often very dangerous to do things at all - and the only thing worth doing for the race is to increase its stock of ideas. Then, if you make available a larger stock, people are at liberty to help themselves from out of it. By this process the means of improvement is offered, to be accepted or rejected freely, and there is a faint hope of progress in the course of millennia. Such is the business of the philosopher, to open new ideas. It is not his business to impose them on people.

The highest reward for our toil is not what we get for it but what we become by it. ... Mistakes are not failures. They are proof that we are making an effort. When we understand that, we can more easily move out of our comfort zone, try something new, and improve. ... Improvement demands a commitment to grow long after the mood in which it was made has passed.

Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity.

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.

Almost everything that I behold in this wonderful country bears traces of improvement and reform - everything except Pie.

It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women's rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement.

Practice only makes for improvement.

If words were invented to conceal thought, newspapers are a great improvement of a bad invention

I find that low protein diets often contribute to improvement in patients with immune system problems ... In fact, it would be hard to become deficient in protein in our country even if you tried.

But in the end, mastery involves working and working and showing little improvement, perhaps with a few moments of flow pulling you along, then making a little progress, and then working and working on that new, slightly higher plateau again. It's grueling, to be sure. But that's not the problem; that's the solution.

The biggest improvement in the flow of information in America in our lifetimes is that no single group controls the news anymore.

It takes awareness that it's not only not a bad thing to let others do things their own way, it is in fact an improvement. It makes life richer and more interesting.

Refrain from following the example of those whose craving is for attention, not their own improvement.

Without standards, there can be no improvement.

Enlightenment is beyond self-improvement and spiritual seeking. It is the final resolution of a case of mistaken identity. It is the direct recognition of your eternal nature and the seeing through of who you have falsely believed yourself to be.

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

The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercized in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it's about earning approval and acceptance.

So much in life seems inflexible and unchangeable, and part of the joy of running and especially racing is the realization that improvement and progress can be achieved.

[In my pre-success years] there was a constant hunger, measuring myself against other actors, and there was sometimes fear. But, there was always a need for self-improvement, to help with the struggle to make myself a better actor.

There are many experts on how things have been done up to now. If you think something could use a little improvement, you are the expert.

Twelve Priceless Qualities of Success: 1. The value of time. 2. The success of perseverance. 3. The pleasure of working. 4. The dignity of simplicity. 5. The worth of character. 6. The power of kindness. 7. The influence of example. 8. The obligation of duty. 9. The wisdom of economy. 10. The virtue of patience. 11. The improvement of talent. 12. The joy of originating.

The political restructuring we pursue in China is aimed at advancing the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system. We will continue to expand people's democracy and build a socialist country under the rule of law in keeping with China's national conditions.

Of those that spin out trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life.

If this was adulthood the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that she could now eat dessert without eating her vegetables.

Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction.

Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.

Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.

The closest you can get to perfection is constant improvement.

So we both strip off our boots and socks and, while there’s some improvement, I could swear he’s making an effort to snap every branch we encounter

So, I think the output of our innovation is great. We have a culture of self-improvement. I know we can continue to improve. There is no issue. But at the same time, our absolute level of output is fantastic.

The liberal arts inform and enlighten the independent citizen of a democracy in the use of his own resources.... They enlarge his capacity for self-knowledge and expand his opportunities for self-improvement.... They are the wellsprings of a free society.

The things that happen are an earthquake, another bomb in Iraq, some big jolt on Wall Street in oil prices, and then you have some new study on drought patterns from climate change. Or another little incremental improvement in photovoltaics. Where do those fit in to the daily stream? They don't.