History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.
quote by Gerald R. Ford

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Progress leads to confusion leads to progress and on and on without respite. Every one of the many major advances … created sooner or later, more often sooner, new problems. These confusions, never twice
the same, are not to be deplored. Rather, those who participate experience them as a privilege.
quote by Abraham Pais

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My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
quote by George Eliot

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There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.
quote by Barbara Amiel

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Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.
quote by Madame de Stael

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I feel very comfortable with the way I look, and I feel very comfortable with the kind of confusion that it creates in people's minds.
quote by Brian Molko

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I also know that there have been many times in our history when the proximity of an election has induced exactly the kind of leadership and consensus-building that produce progress in our democracy.
quote by Joe Lieberman

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The second trial was a fair trial. I do not call it a second trial. I call it a fair trial, as opposed to the first trial, which was an unfair trial, a Roman holiday.
quote by Sam Sheppard

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The twentieth century may tell us that we have nothing to be complacent about in the recent history of humankind; but it also tells us that there is nothing inevitable about tyranny.
quote by Rowan D. Williams

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ongoing Process.
Three quarters of a century.
Recorded in my memory.
Experience that made me, me.
A complete life times history.
Of all I've heard and all I've seen.
Recorded in my memory.
What I have done and where I've been.
A complete life times history.
I can look forward eagerly.
A quarter of a century.
To reaching my centenary.
Recorded automatically.
And stored within my memory.
Accessible only to me.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg

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We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.
quote by Thabo Mbeki

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rochester Cathedral 2005
Pass by this ancient door and pause
Look upon it very history etched in stone
Wonder at its age and all who stood,
As you are standing now, looking.
The good and great of history
Have passed its portals just like you
Kings and Queens of every age
Have worshiped here, the Christ King.
Sit, be still, as voices young and old
Raise in perfect sound, the alleluia’s
To echo round the vaulted heights.
Kneel and pray as others have
So many times before through history
Evidence of the living God worshiped still.
Here Justus placed his knee in prayer
When all was daub and wattle
The imprint of history remains however
A time line of experience, and calling.
Today its mission written large in stone
To worship the alpha and omega
We see its beginnings, its end?
Is always in the future, waiting.
poem by James Tipp

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Life is not A question, But It is an experience!
Life is not a question that to be
solved,
it should be experienced!
Life is that experience of facing
and solving problems,
toughest is to know the one who experience.
The evolution of life itself is story
of trial and error!
life itself is that greatest observer
of itself!
The vision of invisible viewing through mortal eyes,
hearing the silent eloquent by mortal ears,
touching the one beyond touch by mortal skin,
Smelling the one odourfree by mortal nose,
Tasting the one who is tastefree by mortal tongue
Immortal showing up as mortal!
Life is an experience between birth and death,
coming here as nothing,
Learning to love and hate,
Learning to work and expect fruits,
developing skill to use senses and devices,
Learning to use mind and intelligence,
Learning and conveying message,
The message of immortal to mortal,
The truth itself in pursuit of Truth!
Life itself is that truth,
looks like an experience
that constantly puts
its own existence
on trial...
The one who had born has to die,
But one who is eternal continues his eternal play!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar

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Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.
quote by Hunter S. Thompson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development.
History
History strives with history to embark on pleasant news,
Events change the times, as if history is to lose.
poem by Naveed Akram

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Why All This Confusion
Many of times I told you before
You never seem to listen to me
What will it take to prove it to you
That my love for you will always be
Why All This Confusion
How you second guess me all the time
You don't see all these tears I cry
Yet you suspect my heart to be untrue
If only you could know how I feel inside
Why All This Confusion
poem by Suelynn Walters

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What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
quote by Hegel

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Old Chair
We look at an old chair and wonder
whose bottom once sat there.
Was it someone Royal
or someone posh
with lots and lots of dosh,
or was it someone poor
that treasured a comfortable seat.
No matter whom it was,
just look and wonder
at the history of that old chair,
then just sit on it
and put more history there.
29 January 2008
poem by David Harris

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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
quote by Mahatma Gandhi

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Napoleonic Fable
A fable that’s agreed upon
according to Napoleon
is what we should call history,
but ascribe its mystery
to recollections that are wrong
of brief events stretched into long,
in contrast to the brief report
that should, like our own lives, be short.
About this poem’s serious moral
A good historian would not quarrel:
Your history, if you are able
to write it up, is just a fable.
Napoleon once asked rhetorically: “What is history but a fable that is agreed upon? ”
1/3/10
poem by Gershon Hepner

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