Quotes About Improvement

Then again, it seemed my mother was always displeased with all her friends, with me, and even with my father. Something was always missing. Something always needed improving. Something was not in balance. This one or that had too much of one element, not enough of another.

Perfection is static, and I am in full progress.

You need to take language lessons from me, regularly and obediently, until I pronounce you cured.

A forgiving God would be the noblest work of man. We accepted as proven that each stage of civilization creates its own God, and that as man ascends and becomes better his conception of the Unknown likewise improves. Thereafter we all became less theological, but I am sure more truly religious.

Most people assume that maintenance begins when an application is released, that maintenance means fixing bugs and enhancing features. We think these people are wrong.

Kaizen is a Japanese term that captures the concept of continuously making many small improvements. It was considered to be one of the main reasons for the dramatic gains in productivity and quality in Japanese manufacturing and was widely copied throughout the world. Kaizen applies to individuals, too. Every day, work to refine the skills you have and to add new tools to your repertoire.

Learning is a continuous and ongoing process.

Don't leave broken windows (bad designs, wrong decisions, or poor code) unrepaired.

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well. • King Lear 1.4

Like the craftsman, expect to add to your toolbox regularly. Always be on the lookout for better ways of doing things.

When an estimate turns out wrong, don't just shrug and walk away. Find out why it differed from your guess. Maybe you chose some parameters that didn't match the reality of the problem. Maybe your model was wrong. Whatever the reason, take some time to uncover what happened. If you do, your next estimate will be better.

One's skill is never complete, one's knowledge is forever lacking, one's taste is invariably altered, one's opinion ever subject to controversy. There is a complete and constant urge towards improvement.

The amount of improvement that has occurred in computer technology in the past half century is truly staggering and unprecedented in other industries. ... If cars had improved at this rate in the same time period, a Rolls Royce would now cost 10 dollars and get a billion miles per gallon. (Unfortunately, it would probably also have a 200-page manual telling how to open the door.)

We have to be able to criticize what we love, say what we have to say. Cause if you're not trying to make something better then as far as I can tell you are just in the way.

The thing you're doing by default is rarely the best possible version of the thing.

I remember him saying over and over again: go in and check our competition. Check everyone who is our competition. And don't look for the bad. Look for the good. If you get one good idea, that's one more than you went into the store with, and we must try to incorporate it into our company. We're really not concerned with what they're doing wrong, we're concerned with what they're doing right, and everyone is doing something right.

Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First, he gets up every day bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I've ever known. And once he sees he's wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction." All

I guess that was the forerunner of our Saturday morning meetings. We wanted everybody to know what was going on and everybody to be aware of the mistakes we made. When somebody made a bad mistake—whether it was myself or anybody else—we talked about it, admitted it, tried to figure out how to correct it, and then moved on to the next days work.

The thing is, I am absolutely convinced that the only way we can improve one another's quality of life, which is something very real to those of us who grew up in the Depression, is through what we call free enterprise—practiced correctly and morally.

DAVID GLASS: "Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First, he gets up every day bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I've ever known. And once he sees he's wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction.

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors

He discovered a great ambition to excel, which roused him to counteract his indolence. He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so tenacious, that he never forgot any thing that he either heard or read. Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, after a little pause, he repeated verbatim, varying only one epithet, by which he improved the line.