Quotes on Improvement

...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.

Retire into yourself as much as possible. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. People learn as they teach.

Associate only with positive, focused people who you can learn from and who will not drain your valuable energy with uninspiring attitudes. By developing relationships with those committed to constant improvement and the pursuit of the best that life has to offer, you will have plenty of company on your path to the top of whatever mountain you seek to climb.

My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?"

Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you are trying to improve your cognition.

Doubt, 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.

Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.

The power of growth, of improvement, the power to overcome all stagnation and break through every obstacle and transform a barren wasteland into a verdant field - that unstoppable power of hope resides right within your own heart. It wells up from the rich earth of your innermost being when you face the future without doubt or fear: "I can do more. I can grow. I can become a bigger and better human being."

The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Education develops the intellect; and the intellect distinguishes man from other creatures. It is education that enables man to harness nature and utilize her resources for the well-being and improvement of his life

Whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.

The ideas of control and improvements are often confused with one another. This is because quality control and quality improvement are inseparable.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.

Since it is one of the great attributes of our species to be susceptible of improvement and capable of experiencing the most beneficial changes, for this reason what are vulgarly called 'venerable establishments' will often range themselves in opposition to the best interests of the community.

By admitting your inadequacies, you show that you're self-aware enough to know your areas for improvement - and secure enough to be open about them.