The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.
--
The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les istitutions sociales, 1800) , Pt. 2, ch. 4Anne Louise Germaine de Stael
» Anne Louise Germaine de Stael - all quotes »
Evolution is a process, of which we are products, and in which we are active agents. There is no finality about the process, and no automatic or unified progress; but much improvement has occurred in the past, and there could be much further improvement in the future (though there is also the possibility of future failure and regression). Thus the central long-term concern of religion must be to promote further evolutionary improvement and to realise new possibilities; and this means greater fulfilment by more human individuals and fuller achievement by more human societies.
Julian Huxley
What is missing to our civilisation, is the soul, the spiritual unity, the basis. That is why everything in it is pretence and contrivance ("façade et artifice", Fr.); why also, in spite of the progress and marvellous improvement they have accomplished in the external realm ("domaine extérieur", Fr.) men have, in general, become themselves neither better, nor happier. They have neglected too much the essential; their own perfecting (or improvement - "perfectionnement", Fr.)
African Spir
However novel it may appear, I shall venture the assertion that until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly. It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential. If they exert it not for good they will for evil, if they advance not knowledge they will perpetuate ignorance. Let women stand where they may in the scale of improvement, their position decides that of the race.
Frances Wright
The progress of society is mainly ... the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
Daniel Webster
de Stael, Anne Louise Germaine
de Vichy-Chamrond, Marie Anne
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