Popular quotes about Improvement! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 19
Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER unless you can manage to do it DIFFERENTLY, you've got to let yourself do better than other people!
Eliezer YudkowskyRemember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up. But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible--villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word
Brenda Ueland...everything in psychosocial evolution which can properly be called advance, or progress, or improvement, is due directionaly to the increase or improvement of knowledge.
Julian HuxleyFor 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.
Richard DawkinsDoubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. "Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?" Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.
Henry David ThoreauI believe that there's no improvement if you have an inferiority complex and victim mentality.
Kim Nam-joonEven happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and improvement rather than their opposites.
Samuel SmilesI was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no subsitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not always boring. On the contrary. Volatility and passion, although often more romantic and enticing, are not intrinsically preferable to a steadiness of experience and feeling about another person.
Kay Redfield JamisonNothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw. Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer. Maybe self-destruction is the answer.
Chuck PalahniukThe 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.
John C. MaxwellYou cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for our own improvement, and at the same time share a genaral responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think can be most useful.
Marie CurieBy [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.
Thomas JeffersonDoubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man's onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.
Albert PikeIntentional living is the bridge to significance. At the end of every year, I take time out to reflect and evaluate the events of the previous year - what went well and what needed improvement. From that inventory, I lay out my next year - how I intend to live, make the best use of time and maximize adding value to others. Success asks, 'How can I add value to myself?' Significance asks, 'How can I add value to others?' It is your intention that lends itself to significance.
John C. MaxwellAlmost everything that I behold in this wonderful country bears traces of improvement and reform - everything except Pie.
George Augustus Henry SalaMy History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.
John AdamsTo its great credit, Wimbledon has been a leader in bringing about change and improvement in the sport.
Fred PerryBut 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.
Daniel H. PinkLearning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.
Joseph AddisonThe greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace.
Paul TherouxEvery improvement in our conceptions of justice, as well as in the machinery for the administration of justice, whereby a closer approximation to exact justice may be secured, will make for social peace, though the mere adjudication of conflicting interests will not remove the conflicts themselves nor their cause. That lies deeper than legislatures or courts can probe.
Thomas Nixon CarverSometimes you just need to give in to the yuckiness of the day, throw your psychic hands up in the air and trust that tomorrow will be an improvement.
Amy ShearnRemember that Abraham Lincoln was a Whig far longer than he was a Republican. As a whole, the Whigs looked upon banks and corporations as a more efficient means of development; the Jacksonian Democrats thought they were the tools of the devil, but Whigs like Lincoln disagreed. During his presidency, Lincoln favored the re-construction of a national financial system, and his most important 'internal improvement' project was the Pacific railroad.
Allen C. GuelzoPersonal improvement is like sitting in a movie theater, arguing with the villain projected on the screen, and feeling that at least we have tried to make things better.
Steven HarrisonIt's not records I chase, it's self-improvement. And that cannot be done by taking it easy.
Chrissie WellingtonWe often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness.
Tullian TchividjianI have to be careful not to be too proud in life, because there is always room for improvement.
Sylvia KristelMy mother gave me an understanding that as good as you think you are, you're not so great. There's always room for improvement. The reality is when people don't have someone to give them a sense of guidance, and say, "Hey, man, that's not happening," it's really hard.
Stevie WonderPolitics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.
Paul WellstoneI donโt think thereโs any problem with advancing consciousness and becoming more and more aware of the struggle, not with the world, not to convince other people to do anything. The really interesting think is the struggle with the self, and the relation with the self, and there is no end to the improvement that can be done there, the discoveries that can be made.
Allen GinsbergNothing 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.
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st BaronetSocietyโs future will depend on a continuous improvement program for the human character. And what will that future bring? I do not know, but it will be exciting.
Neil ArmstrongEverything in my life has been about sound and making music, so Beats represents just that - the improvement of sound and the dedication to everything I've been doing from the day I started.
Dr. DreThe competitive instinct is what I think drives organizations and people to become better and better. It can promote change toward progress and development, which is good for everybody. It can be the motivating force behind improvement in our social well-being that is far beyond anything we might have imagined on our own.
Lee R. RaymondI know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment.
John NewtonJust because I accept you as you are does not mean that I have given up all hope of your improvement.
Ashleigh BrilliantThe principles and methods for improvement are the same for service as for manufacturing. The actual application differs, of course, from one product to another, and from one type of service to another.
W. Edwards DemingIn my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.
Rosalind FranklinConventional sports have undergone an evolution in training methods during the last fifty years. Curiosity and the inherent improvement brought about by competition have driven this evolution to a state of high refinement such that today's athletes have a very specialized approach to training at the elite levels.
Steve House