This is a really great idea Jennifer! I've enjoyed reading what other people submitted. Here are some of mine:
- On our current status: "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time." ~Max Roser from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
- On data: "We have many ways of learning about the world and we should make use of all of them. A statistical view without personal experience lacks depth, and personal experience without statistical knowledge lacks perspective." ~Max Roser from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/limits-personal-experience
- On pragmatism: "There are no guarantees that things will turn out very well for anyone. A sunny disposition is not an action plan or a to-do list. “Just have faith” is a strategy that forecloses our capacity to challenge power. If the world is going to get better, it will only happen through concerted, shared, collective effort." ~Dave Karpf: https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/on-technological-optimism-and-technological
- On infrastructure: "Nevertheless, the fact is that mature technological systems — cars, roads, municipal water supplies, sewers, telephones, railroads, weather forecasting, buildings, even computers in the majority of their uses — reside in a naturalized background, as ordinary and unremarkable to us as trees, daylight, and dirt. Our civilizations fundamentally depend on them, yet we notice them mainly when they fail, which they rarely do. They are the connective tissues and the circulatory systems of modernity. In short, these systems have become infrastructures." ~Paul N. Edwards, University of Michigan: http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/twente.pdf
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
- CS Lewis
“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”
- Puddleglum, (The Silver Chair, CS Lewis)
There is no way out for Man but steeply up or steeply down. Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.
- H. G. Wells, Mind at the End of its Tether (1949)
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. … To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.
- C. S. Lewis
It is not the bad people I fear so much as the good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel--he believes in punishment.
- Clarence Darrow (reportedly to a group of inmates)
Civilization is merely a thin veneer we have put on top of our anciently derived instincts, but the veneer is what makes it possible for modern society to operate. Being civilized means, among other things, stopping your immediate response to a situation, and thinking whether it is or is not the appropriate thing to do. … In summary, I began by warning you about dealing with experts; but towards the end I am warning you about yourself when in your turn you are the expert.
- Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, pg. 186 (ch 26 - Experts)
- Note: There are tons of Hamming quotes worth pulling in this book and in particular, for the progress studies crowd, a lot in the chapters on creativity and experts.
If you haven‟t been reading the newspapers for a few months and then read them all together, you realize how much time is wasted with these sheets of paper. The world has always been divided into parties, and this applies more especially nowadays; and whenever there is a situation of uncertainty, the journalist baits either one party or the other, either more or less, and boosts our inner preference or dislike from one day to the next until, in the end, there is a decision and then, what has happened is an object of wonder, as though it were an act of God.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections
I am a rudderless, burning, large garbage barge.
- Diane Nguyen
I do not intend to destroy segregation by physical force. That would entail human waste and would not gain my objectives. I hope to see it destroyed by a power greater than all the robot bombs and explosives of human creation––by a power of the spirit, an appeal to the intelligence of man, a laying hold of the creative and dynamic impulses within the minds of men. The great poets and prophets have heralded this method; Christ, Thoreau, and Gandhi have demonstrated it. I intend to do my part through the power of persuasion, by spiritual resistance, by the power of my pen, and by inviting the violence upon my own body. For what is life itself without the freedom to walk proudly before God and man and to glorify creation through the genius of self-expression. I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. When my brothers draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them....
- Pauli Murray, An American Credo, 1945, Common Ground.
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
- Kant
Don’t get it right, get it written.
- James M. Buchanan (as quoted by Tyler Cowen on MR).
Man is “adaptive in many if not any direction,” he wrote in his 1969 book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. “Mind apprehends and comprehends the general principles governing flight and deep sea diving, and man puts on his wings or his lungs, and then takes them off when not using them. The specialist bird is greatly impeded by its wings when trying to walk. The fish cannot come out of the sea and walk upon land, for birds and fish are specialists.”
- Buckminster Fuller (You Belong to the Universe - page 43)
We were going to say that we were going to cure cancer. Curing it is someone else’s department.
- Sam Seabourne, The West Wing, S3xE12, 100,000 Airplanes
Deep down, you almost always like how a real leader makes you feel, how you find yourself working harder and pushing yourself and thinking in ways you wouldn’t be able to if there weren’t this person you respected and believed in and wanted to please.
In other words, a real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own
- David Foster Wallace, in Rolling Stone
"To appreciate the importance of fitting every human soul for independent action, think for a moment of the immeasurable solitude of self. We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us, we leave it alone, under circumstances peculiar to ourselves.”
The Solitude of Self - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“We take ourselves seriously whether we lead serious lives or not..”
Love this! I used a Jerusalem Demsas quote in an essay a few weeks ago: "Cities are people." That proverb pairs nicely with your colleague's "people bring prosperity." The combined idea was what my piece was about, that cities can build prosperity by attracting more people, but I love that the whole idea can be described in six words. Fun read! Looking forward to the collection.
This is a really great idea Jennifer! I've enjoyed reading what other people submitted. Here are some of mine:
- On our current status: "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time." ~Max Roser from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
- On data: "We have many ways of learning about the world and we should make use of all of them. A statistical view without personal experience lacks depth, and personal experience without statistical knowledge lacks perspective." ~Max Roser from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/limits-personal-experience
- On optimism: "Optimistic but dissatisfied is the road to progress." ~Hannah Ritchie: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23622511/climate-doomerism-optimism-progress-environmentalism
- On pragmatism: "There are no guarantees that things will turn out very well for anyone. A sunny disposition is not an action plan or a to-do list. “Just have faith” is a strategy that forecloses our capacity to challenge power. If the world is going to get better, it will only happen through concerted, shared, collective effort." ~Dave Karpf: https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/on-technological-optimism-and-technological
- On infrastructure: "Nevertheless, the fact is that mature technological systems — cars, roads, municipal water supplies, sewers, telephones, railroads, weather forecasting, buildings, even computers in the majority of their uses — reside in a naturalized background, as ordinary and unremarkable to us as trees, daylight, and dirt. Our civilizations fundamentally depend on them, yet we notice them mainly when they fail, which they rarely do. They are the connective tissues and the circulatory systems of modernity. In short, these systems have become infrastructures." ~Paul N. Edwards, University of Michigan: http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/twente.pdf
These are great, thank you! "Optimistic but dissatisfied" is so good.
Must be Inherit the Wind's progress is never a bargain scene!
https://youtu.be/vtNdYsoool8?t=42
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
- CS Lewis
“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”
- Puddleglum, (The Silver Chair, CS Lewis)
There is no way out for Man but steeply up or steeply down. Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.
- H. G. Wells, Mind at the End of its Tether (1949)
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. … To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.
- C. S. Lewis
It is not the bad people I fear so much as the good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel--he believes in punishment.
- Clarence Darrow (reportedly to a group of inmates)
Civilization is merely a thin veneer we have put on top of our anciently derived instincts, but the veneer is what makes it possible for modern society to operate. Being civilized means, among other things, stopping your immediate response to a situation, and thinking whether it is or is not the appropriate thing to do. … In summary, I began by warning you about dealing with experts; but towards the end I am warning you about yourself when in your turn you are the expert.
- Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, pg. 186 (ch 26 - Experts)
- Note: There are tons of Hamming quotes worth pulling in this book and in particular, for the progress studies crowd, a lot in the chapters on creativity and experts.
If you haven‟t been reading the newspapers for a few months and then read them all together, you realize how much time is wasted with these sheets of paper. The world has always been divided into parties, and this applies more especially nowadays; and whenever there is a situation of uncertainty, the journalist baits either one party or the other, either more or less, and boosts our inner preference or dislike from one day to the next until, in the end, there is a decision and then, what has happened is an object of wonder, as though it were an act of God.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections
I am a rudderless, burning, large garbage barge.
- Diane Nguyen
I do not intend to destroy segregation by physical force. That would entail human waste and would not gain my objectives. I hope to see it destroyed by a power greater than all the robot bombs and explosives of human creation––by a power of the spirit, an appeal to the intelligence of man, a laying hold of the creative and dynamic impulses within the minds of men. The great poets and prophets have heralded this method; Christ, Thoreau, and Gandhi have demonstrated it. I intend to do my part through the power of persuasion, by spiritual resistance, by the power of my pen, and by inviting the violence upon my own body. For what is life itself without the freedom to walk proudly before God and man and to glorify creation through the genius of self-expression. I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. When my brothers draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them....
- Pauli Murray, An American Credo, 1945, Common Ground.
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
- Kant
Don’t get it right, get it written.
- James M. Buchanan (as quoted by Tyler Cowen on MR).
Man is “adaptive in many if not any direction,” he wrote in his 1969 book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. “Mind apprehends and comprehends the general principles governing flight and deep sea diving, and man puts on his wings or his lungs, and then takes them off when not using them. The specialist bird is greatly impeded by its wings when trying to walk. The fish cannot come out of the sea and walk upon land, for birds and fish are specialists.”
- Buckminster Fuller (You Belong to the Universe - page 43)
We were going to say that we were going to cure cancer. Curing it is someone else’s department.
- Sam Seabourne, The West Wing, S3xE12, 100,000 Airplanes
Deep down, you almost always like how a real leader makes you feel, how you find yourself working harder and pushing yourself and thinking in ways you wouldn’t be able to if there weren’t this person you respected and believed in and wanted to please.
In other words, a real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own
- David Foster Wallace, in Rolling Stone
"To appreciate the importance of fitting every human soul for independent action, think for a moment of the immeasurable solitude of self. We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us, we leave it alone, under circumstances peculiar to ourselves.”
The Solitude of Self - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“We take ourselves seriously whether we lead serious lives or not..”
Thomas Nagel - The Absurd - pg. 719
I should have guessed that you would use an Inherit the Wind quote!
Great and inspiring post, Jennifer! Here are some of my favorite progress quotes and quips that come to mind:
- "The human brain is the ultimate resource" (Julian Simon)
- "Ideas are an inexhaustible resource" (Paul Romer)
- "And there is nothing that exists so great or marvellous / That over time mankind does not admire it less and less." (Lucretius)
- "Ideas having sex" (Matt Ridley on innovation and human ingenuity)
- "Poverty is the greatest polluter" (Indira Gandhi)
- "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (Monty Python's Life of Brain)
- “Once you start thinking about growth, it's hard to think about anything else" (Robert Lucas)
- "“Every problem that is interesting is also soluble" (David Deutsch)
- “Now let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings” (S. Chandrasekhar)
Love these. And I can respect anyone who has a Lucretius quote in the same list as Monty Python!
Well, I have a vewy good fwiend in Wome! ;-)
Love this! I used a Jerusalem Demsas quote in an essay a few weeks ago: "Cities are people." That proverb pairs nicely with your colleague's "people bring prosperity." The combined idea was what my piece was about, that cities can build prosperity by attracting more people, but I love that the whole idea can be described in six words. Fun read! Looking forward to the collection.
So interesting Jennifer!
The quote analogy was so good: "Quotes are like spices. If you have a nice full spice rack, chances are your cooking tastes better. "
Awesome essay :)
Thanks Tommy!