Quotes About Improvement

Young man! If my notes should fall into your hands, remember that the best and most enduring changes are those which stem from an improvement in moral behaviour, without any violent upheaval.

True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it.

Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone.

First, he became aware of it. Many of us don't seem able to take even this step. Second, and most significant, he chose not to focus on reinforcing its weaker threads. Instead, he did the exact opposite: He identified its strongest threads, wove in education and experience, and built them into the dominating strengths we see today.

The point here is not that you should always forgo this kind of weakness fixing. The point is that you should see it for what it is: damage control, not development. And as we mentioned earlier, damage control can prevent failure, but it will never elevate you to excellence.

Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance.

The bottom line on skills is this: A skill is designed to make the secrets of the best easily transferable. If you learn a skill, it will help you get a little better, but it will not cover for a lack of talent. Instead, as you build your strengths, skills will actually prove most valuable when they are combined with genuine talent.

Each of these strategies-get a little better at it, design a support system, use one of your strongest themes to overwhelm your weakness, find a partner, and just stop doing it-can help you as you strive to build your life around your strengths.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

It doesn`t hurt to get more education.

We know a tremendous amount about how the world works, but not nearly enough. Our knowledge is amazing; our ignorance even more so. We can improve our understanding, but we can't make it perfect.

The more I practice piano, the more pleasure I get from the sound, and so the more I play the piano, which gives me more practice.

Mothers have to pretend to be perfect[.] If we didn't, anarchy would rule the world. But most of the time we're just doing the best we can and trying to get better at it everyday

yoga is not about self-improvement or making ourselves better. It is a process of deconstructing all the barriers we may have erected that prevent us from having an authentic connection with ourselves and with the world. This tenet is an extremely important one because the effort to change and improve ourselves is fraught with the risk of subtle self-aggression that only produces more unhappiness. We cannot strive toward something that we already are.

These seem such minor matters, but it is the sum of small things successfully done that lifts a life out of bondage to the humdrum.

My own experience has been that there is no field where one who is in earnest about learning to do good work can make such enormous strides in so short a time.

In spite of the conflicts in the radical movement much was gained by this constant agitation. Evictions were halted, relief came, playgrounds were built, slum houses were torn down, and conditions have somewhat improved.

Practice makes perfect," is misleading. When practicing, many people do the behavior by rote—without thinking about what they're doing. But this kind of practice does not make perfect. Quite the opposite. Instead of leading to perfection, rote practice tends to make permanent the current less-than-desirable level of ability.

You have greater access to sanitation and clean water than ever before. To privacy, leisure, and artificial light. To transportation, communication, and computation. The list goes on and on.

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling

The lesson of evolution is that struggle and competition are the only sculptors that can ensure a species reaches its highest potential. Only a struggle for the ultimate stakes can bring out the best on all sides, as each side is forced to adapt and improve in response to the other, in a constant escalation of potential.

By just about every measure, America is better, and the world is better, than it was fifty years ago, thirty years ago, or even ten years ago.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling.

So a key ingredient to achieving happiness is to become engaged in activities that consume our concentration, that don't give our imaginations room to find new things to worry about. If we're totally focused on something we enjoy, living in the moment, like every other animal in the animal kingdom, we're alive, electric—and happy. Especially if we're challenging ourselves, overcoming obstacles, improving, achieving.