Edwin Markham Quotes

A man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities; and with the man himself first ceases to be a jungle, and foul unwholesome desert thereby. The man is now a man.

People are the common denominator of progress; no improvement is possible with unimproved people.

There is one further distinguishing characteristic of man which is very specific indeed and about which there can be no dispute, and that is the faculty of self-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, progressively develops all our other faculties.

We all have to get better as human beings and that's something you can't really get away from.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining.

It is through science that we understand the world around us, and by understanding the world around us, we not only contribute to ourselves, our family, to our communities, etc. - you also contribute to the basic development and evolution of humanity.

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.

I'm for people bettering themselves, no matter who they are and where they are, doing all they can to be all they can be.

I prefer stories about people who are, in a sense, trying to find better versions of themselves.

Self-reform automatically brings about social reform.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

Man's nature is fundamentally good, or perhaps it is neither good nor evil. In any case, man is something to work on. We must hold fast to this fact - man is something to work on.

There is the story in every man's heart of human progress. I believe every one of us knows that his major job on Earth is to make some contributions, no matter how small, to this inexorable movement of human progress.

Knowledge has value only insofar as it contributes to the all-round development of the whole nature of man.

I'm a sucker when it comes to under-explored human potential and 'stuff that makes you be better.'

Man is improvable. Some people think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water.

Every human being is born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of learning.

Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.

There is no greater miracle than our conscious efforts to become good human beings.

A human being is like a seed. Either you can keep it as it is, or you can make it grow into a wonderful tree with flowers and fruits.

Human beings all change. Not what they are but who they are. We have the power to change what we do with our life and turn it into our destiny.

Thus the radii of all education run together into one center which is called personality.