Quotes about progressivism: As many great thinkers of history have pointed out, progressivism is an important tool to help guide public policy decisions. Here are famous quotes about progressivism from the great minds of history. You might be surprised by some of the views on progressivism expressed by these historical figures!
Progressivism, or the idea that continuous societal improvement can be achieved through social change, has been traced back to ancient philosophers. In this article, we look at quotes about progressivism from history’s greatest thinkers, and examine how these quotes have influenced progressive political ideas today.
Progressivism has been around since the beginning of humanity, and it’s important today more than ever to remind ourselves of the values our forefathers had about progress. These quotes about progressivism from history’s greatest thinkers will give you a better understanding of what this movement means and why it’s so important to us all.
Quotes about Progressivism
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. – Will Durant
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal. – Earl Nightingale
Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both. – Abraham Lincoln
I believe moderates will need to be driven out in order to usher in the progressive era. – Barack Obama
I am a progressive who gets things done. The root of that word, progressive, is progress. – Hillary Clinton
The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change. – Charles Darwin
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. – Hélder Câmara
For progressive people the present is the beginning of the future. For conservative people the present is the end of the past. – Karl Mannheim
It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas. – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don’t let tradition paralyze your mind. Be receptive to new ideas. Be experimental. Try new approaches. Be progressive in everything you do. – David J. Schwartz
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. – C. S. Lewis
Many interviewers, when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‘Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.’ – Colin Powell
Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. – Will Durant. Quotes about progressivism
Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world. – E. O. Wilson. Quotes about progressivism
Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation. – Jane Addams. Quotes about progressivism
Without liberals we wouldn’t have unions. We wouldn’t have environmental protections. We wouldn’t have seat belts or birth control or the ACLU! Any of these things! – Janeane Garofalo
The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life. – Hugh Walpole
Read Also: Quotes about Machines for Human Progress
Quotes on Progressive Leadership
On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world. – Wim Wenders
The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency. – George Orwell
I’m very progressive in a lot of ways, but I’m a very proud American. It sounds so corny to say, but I am and have always been very… I’m just so proud. I don’t ever want to live in America. – Nick Viall. Quotes about progressivism
Because of social pressure, individualism is rejected by most people in favor of conformity. Thus the individual relies mainly upon the actions of others and neglects the meaning of his own personal life. Hence he sees his own life as meaningless and falls into the “existential vacuum” feeling inner void. Progressive automation causes increased alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, and suicide. – Viktor E. Frankl
I’m arguing for progressive positions on behalf of a progressive administration in front of a court who, before Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s death, had a conservative majority that was quite conservative, frankly. – Donald Verrilli Jr.
I think he’s [Louis Brandeis] a great model for progressive justices today who want to answer the originalists. It’s not that the original paradigm cases are irrelevant, but you have to focus on the values the framers were trying to protect, not on the means with which those values were invaded in the 18th century. – Jeffrey Rosen
Movements are not radical. Movements are the American way. A small group of abolitionists writing and speaking eventually led to the end of slavery. A few stirred-up women brought about women’s voting. The Populist movement, the Progressive movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women’s movement – the examples go on and on of ‘little people’ getting together and telling the truth about their lives. They made our government act. – Unita Blackwell
I want to congratulate Senator [Bernie] Sanders for the extraordinary campaign…. He has spent his long career in public service, fighting for progressive causes and principles, and he has excited millions of voters, especially young people. – Hillary Clinton
What, after all, is the narrative of the American Dream? It was a discourse formulated between the 1880s and the 1920s in the United States during the great waves of migration and expansion and reforms of the Progressive Era. – Naomi Wolf
The American people, whether you are Democrat, independent, Republican, progressive, conservative, do not believe corporations are people or that corporations should be able to buy elections. – Bernie Sanders. Quotes about progressivism
I’m so grateful for Living the Questions. These progressive voices offer less rigid and more expansive approaches to the Christian faith, and make room for people who practice critical thinking and question the gatekeepers. They helped us see that questioning the gatekeepers was exactly what Jesus was all about. – Brian D. McLaren
Quotes about Progressivism in Education
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. – Oscar Wilde. Quotes about progressivism
I’m a liberal. I was confused when that became a bad word… – George Clooney. Quotes about progressivism
It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating human life. – Pope Francis. Quotes about progressivism
Plans to protect air, water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man. – Stewart Udall. Quotes about progressivism
Astronomy is … the only progressive science which the ancient world produced. – William Whewell. Quotes about progressivism
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy. – Theodore Roosevelt. Quotes about progressivism
Every piece of progressive social legislation passed by Congress in the 20th century bears a union label. – George Meany. Quotes about progressivism
There’s nothing on this green earth that a liberal progressive fears more than a black American who wants a better life and a smaller government. – Allen West
The silent majority really is a liberal majority, even though the word liberal has taken a real beating over the last 20 years by radical conservatives. – Robert Reich
Freedom is the opportunity for right development, for development in accordance with the progressive ideal of life that we have in conscience. – Charles Horton Cooley
Life is a partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and conditionally interactive self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states. – John Desmond Bernal
Teaching Related Quotes about Progressivism
The will of a majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatible with liberty. – John C. Calhoun. Quotes about progressivism
Viking women were able to rule kingdoms, divorce husbands, own land, and Vikings were very progressive in terms of the rights of women. – Gabriel Byrne
The “October Revolution” is a myth generated by the winners, the Bolsheviks, and swallowed whole by progressive circles in the West. – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better. – Christian Nestell Bovee
No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office. – Gloria Steinem
There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics. – Paul Wellstone. Quotes about progressivism
There’s enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level – everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections is having terrific success. – Jim Hightower
Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Democracy is an objective. Democratization is a process. Democratization serves the cause of peace because it offers the possibility of justice and of progressive change without force. – Boutros Boutros-Ghali
The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public. – Paul Gauguin
The key to the defeat and eventually the end of imperialism as a a whole is the unity of all socialist countries and progressive forces in capitalist countries. – Tim Buck. Quotes about progressivism
The ‘public’ artist confirms the world that we already accept, though he inevitably widens our experience of it; his method is one of research, the progressive uncovering of detail. – Kenneth Coutts-Smith
The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist. – Danny Glover
The pause – that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however felicitous, could accomplish it. – Mark Twain
We have a complete void of progressive politics in this country right now. The will of the people goes ignored and unrealized. I’m searching for the people that can enter the political system, a strong third party. We need to consolidate. – Ani DiFranco
On issue after issue, the polls – and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time – show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. – Katrina Vanden Heuvel
