Popular quotes about Improvement! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
A robust internal auditing program shows its presence both at the beginning and end of continual improvement projects. In the beginning, internal audits identify opportunities for improvement, at the end, internal audits provide a mechanism for monitoring the implemented improvement in order to sustain its benefits for the long term.
John NovakIt 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. One must standardize, and thus stabilize the process, before continuous improvement can be made.
Masaaki ImaiImprovement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
William BlakeFor 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 DawkinsThe first object of human association [is] the full improvement of their condition.
Thomas JeffersonFallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.
C. S. LewisMake your workplace into showcase that can be understood by everyone at a glance. In terms of quality, it means to make the defects immediately apparent. In terms of quantity, it means that progress or delay, measured against the plan, and is made immediately apparent. When this is done, problems can be discovered immediately, and everyone can initiate improvement plans.
Taiichi OhnoThe spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
John Stuart MillThe first thing to say about Eve is that she was a big improvement on the Adam design, or that Adam was an extremely misguided variation on the Eve design. (Consider testicles. Two concentrated nuclei of absolute vulnerability. Where? Dangling between the legs. I rest my case.)
Glen DuncanIt is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.
Colson WhiteheadSocial improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
Eric HofferTo make the quickest progress, you don't have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps-and keep on taking them. In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as 'continual improvement.' Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change.
Marci ShimoffProgress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
George SantayanaYou got to be careful to not get too comfortable with incremental improvement. I think sometimes you just got to jump off a ledge.
Merlin MannMedicine today invests heavily in information technology, yet the promised improvement in patient safety and productivity frankly have not been realized.
Peter PronovostA state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law.
Kurt HuberThere are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code for patient adherence or improvement, or for helping patients stay well.
Clayton ChristensenThere's always room for improvement, but the judges are looking for big airs and stylish tricks.
Shaun WhiteThe widespread availability of information is the only basis for effective day-to-day problem solving, which abets continuous improvement programs.
Tom PetersI will ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope.
FrontinusThe great object to be attained through the observance of Arbor Day is the cultivation of a love for nature among children, with the confident expectation that thereby the needless de-struction of the forests will be stayed, and the improvement of grounds about school buildings and residences will be promoted.
Andrew S. DraperThere's always room for improvement. I incorporate the lessons I learned from my mistakes and move forward.
Jillian MichaelsAmerica is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America
Alexis de TocquevilleEvery improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before.
Mark TwainHumility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement.
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st BaronetIn the very progress of society, the prison has in the very nature of things undergone some improvement, but there are vast stretches yet to be covered before the prison becomes, if it ever does, an institution for the reclamation and rehabilitation of erring and unfortunate men and women.
Eugene V. DebsWhen you mentioned something about self improvement, the implication is that the negro is something distinct or different, and, therefore, needs to learn how to improve himself. Negro leaders resent this being said, not because they don't know that it's true, but they're thinking, they're looking at it personally. They think that the implication is directed even at them, and that they, and they duck this responsibility.
Malcolm XInfinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement: we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere.
Arthur HelpsNow we've got that [children's death rate] down to about 5 percent, so we've more than cut it in half, and that's because we're getting vaccines out, economic improvement also helps there, but the vaccines are why we've seen an acceleration in getting that down.
Bill GatesThe ordinary naturalist is not sufficiently aware that when dogmatizing on what species are, he is grappling with the whole question of the organic world & its connection with the time past & with Man; that it involves the question of Man & his relation to the brutes, of instinct, intelligence & reason, of Creation, transmutation & progressive improvement or development. Each set of geological questions & of ethnological & zool. & botan. are parts of the great problem which is always assuming a new aspect.
Charles LyellWe're the largest home improvement company today, and we did $30 billion last year, or less than 10 percent of the total amount of building materials sold in the U.S. So when people ask, how much runway left does Home Depot have, it's an awful lot.
Arthur BlankMost of these alternative arrangements, so-called, arise out of the ruins of marriages, not as an improvement of old fashioned marriage.
Christopher LaschThere is one further distinguishing characteristic of man which is very specific indeed and about which there can be no dispute, and that is the faculty of self-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, progressively develops all our other faculties.
Jean-Jacques RousseauI believe that now and always the conscious selection of the best for reproduction will be impossible; that to propose it is to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what individuality implies. The way of nature has always been to slay the hindmost, and there is still no other way, unless we can prevent those who would become the hindmost being born. It is in the sterilization of failure, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies.
H. G. WellsEthical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
Felix AdlerThe improvement of our way of life is more important than the spreading of it. If we make it satisfactory enough, it will spread automatically. If we do not, no strength of arms can permanently oppose it.
Charles LindberghSo, 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.
Steve BallmerI found happiness when I realized that as imperfect as I may be, I am the perfect Nick Vujicic. I am God's creation, designed according to His plan for me. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement. I'm always trying to be better so I can better serve Him and the world!
Nick VujicicLibraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent. Technology will not change that, for even in the starchiest heyday of Victorian self-improvement, libraries were intended to be meeting places of the mind, recreational as well as educational.
Ben MacintyreNow I say that if you run more than 15 miles a week, it's for something other than aerobic fitness. Once you pass 15 miles, you do not see much further improvement.
Kenneth H. Cooper