Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

We are going to transform Britain’s rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you’ve lived a good life.

Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.

You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That’s it; that’s the way we move forward. That’s how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn’t do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

For most of us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.

For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

For my part, I desire to see the time when education – and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry – shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Of course humans like to explore, and we should. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s more than that. It’s essential for your children and your children’s children.

The best road to progress is freedom’s road.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It’s a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country’s cause.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us – aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.

Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cure, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more.

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

High-quality early-childhood programs and health coverage have expanded, and the number of mentoring relationships for at-risk youth has risen dramatically. That progress is encouraging, but it’s not evenly distributed.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows… what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants – if they survive that long – will see.

This President is going to lead us out of this recovery.

If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.

The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to minus 271.3*C – not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.

I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

Sometimes what works 40 years ago doesn’t work today.

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.