Neil Armstrong Quotes

If people are all the same underneath, how has society changed so fast and so radically? Life now is completely different to how it was 32,000 years ago. It's changed like that of no other species has. What's made that difference?

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops,—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

We can all become better than we are.

Our intellectual development in the field of science has outstripped our human development in the field of character.

I want to talk about the nature of human beings or how we're evolving as a race.

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.

As a society becomes more enlightened, it realizes that it is responsible not to transmit and conserve the whole of its existing achievements, but only such as make for a better future society. The school is its chief agency for the accomplishment of this end.

In order for good to blossom it must be cultivated and exercised by constant practice, and to be truly righteous there is required a daily pruning of the evil growth of our characters by a daily repen- tance from sin.

Civilization in certain respects is as inadequate as it was a thousand years ago.

Let us hopethat by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.

Always remember, actions speak louder than words. No one's perfect, but we can all strive to be better people.

A stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There could be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress.

If the Settlement seeks its expression through social activity, it must learn the difference between mere social unrest and spiritual impulse.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. . . . We might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.

A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good.

Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

It is inherent in human consciousness to improve. So there is nothing unique about a people searching for and creating ways to make their life better - all civilizations throughout history have done this. What is unique about us in America is the accelerated rate at which we continually search for novelty and progress.

It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men, but also to advance civilization.

The progress of the world through all its evils making it fit for the ideals, slowly but surely.

Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage.

Everyone knows that weeds eat out the life of the garden and of the productive fields. It's like that in the building and developing of character. No one knows our own faults and tendencies better than we do ourselves, so that it is up to each one of us to keep the weeds out, and to keep all growth vigorous and fruitful.

I want to play challenging characters. You should never be satisfied.

For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character