We thought it might be nice to hear what some famous people had to say about 'progress' so here's a list of quotes found. The first two seem to be the truest. (IMHO) So, have a bit of fun and see which ones strike you.

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The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.

John F. Kennedy (1917-63), U.S. president.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), U.S. Democratic politician.

Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author.

Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress."Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only as a means to this end, not as an end in itself. For me on the contrary clarity, perspicuity are valuable in themselves.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian philosopher.

A radical is one of whom people say "He goes too far." A conservative, on the other hand, is one who "doesn't go far enough." Then there is the reactionary, "one who doesn't go at all." All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term "progressive." I should say that a progressive is one who insists upon recognizing new facts as they present themselves-one who adjusts legislation to these new facts.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), U.S. Democratic politician, president.

Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress." Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only as a means to this end, not as an end in itself. For me on the contrary clarity, perspicuity are valuable in themselves.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian philosopher. Culture and Value.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic.

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author.

The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage.

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), U.S. Republican politician, president.

It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

Tony Benn (b. 1925), British Labour politician.

Progress is the life-style of man. The general life of the human race is called Progress, and so is its collective march. Progress advances, it makes the great human and earthly journey towards what is heavenly and divine; it has its pauses, when it rallies the stragglers, its stopping places when it meditates, contemplating some new and splendid promised land that has suddenly appeared on its horizon. It has its nights of slumber; and it is one of the poignant anxieties of the thinker to see the human spirit lost in shadow, and to grope in the darkness without being able to awake sleeping progress.

Victor Hugo (1802-85), French poet, dramatist, novelist. Les Misérables

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

Walter Bagehot (1826-77), English economist, critic. Physics and Politics.

All progress is experimental.

John Jay Chapman (1862-1933), U.S. author. Practical Agitation.

Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.

Alexander Herzen (1812-70), Russian journalist, political.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.

John Jay Chapman (1862-1933), U.S. author. Practical Agitation.

Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.

Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist.

Nothing recedes like progress.

e. e. cummings (1894-1962), U.S. poet. Jottings.

Progress everywhere today does seem to come so very heavily disguised as Chaos.

Joyce Grenfell (1910-79), British actor, writer.

Progress, under whose feet the grass mourns and the forest turns into paper from which newspaper plants grow, has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.

Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist.

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.

Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923), South African author.

Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize . . . the immense riches accumulated by the human race. . . . By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-90), French anthropologist.

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), U.S. poet.

Time advances: facts accumulate; doubts arise. Faint glimpses of truth begin to appear, and shine more and more unto the perfect day. The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn. They are bright, while the level below is still in darkness. But soon the light, which at first illuminated only the loftiest eminences, descends on the plain, and penetrates to the deepest valley. First come hints, then fragments of systems, then defective systems, then complete and harmonious systems. The sound opinion, held for a time by one bold speculator, becomes the opinion of a small minority, of a strong minority, of a majority of mankind. Thus, the great progress goes on.

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), English historian.

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.

Henry Miller (1891-1980), U.S. author. The Wisdom of the Heart.

Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century.

Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), U.S. social philosopher. Technics and Civilization.

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

George Orwell (1903-50), British author.

You can't say that civilization don't advance . . . for in every war they kill you a new way.

Will Rogers (1879-1935), U.S. humorist.

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress-though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, mathematician.

Progress, 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.

George Santayana (1863-1952), U.S. philosopher, poet. The Life of Reason.