Growth



Growth refers to an increase in some quantity over time. The quantity can be physical (e.g., growth in height, growth in an amount of money) or qualitative (e.g., a system becoming more complex, an organism becoming more mature). The term is often applied to concepts involving self-help, when individuals or a groups attempt economic, intellectual or emotional improvement. A basis for such growth is often self-reliance, public knowledge or groups where people with similar problems or interests join together.

A-L

 * Growth for the sake of growth is a cancerous madness.
 * Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, "Water", p. 114 (1968).


 * Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
 * Edward Abbey, The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West. Plume: New York. 1991. Pg 183.


 * In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
 * "Chance, the gardner" in Being There (1979).


 * Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
 * "Chance, the gardner" in Being There (1979).


 * You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.
 * Alexander Graham Bell, Bell Telephone Talk, Interview with Bell published in How They Succeeded (1901) by Orison Swett Marden, Ch. 2. (1901).


 * Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
 * Attributed to Kenneth Boulding in United States Congress, House (1973), Energy reorganization act of 1973: Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, first session, on H.R. 11510. p. 248


 * A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully.
 * Leo Buscaglia, in interview with Veronica M. Hay, in A Magazine of People and Possibilities (1998).


 * Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.
 * Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way (1992).


 * The growth of one blesses all. I am committed to grow in love. All that I touch, I leave in love. I move through this world consciously and creatively.
 * Julia Cameron, Blessings (1998).


 * Self growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no higher investment.
 * Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, p. 62 (1989).


 * What you dream, you can grow.
 * Alice Hoffman Green Witch (2010)


 * Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 126.


 * Growth is just awareness of more and more.
 * Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water (1963), Ch. XII.1.


 * Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
 * George Henry Lewes, The Spanish Drama, ch. 2 (1846).


 * Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
 * Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Wave of the Future (1940).

M-Z

 * People find it easy to justify their frustration in the struggle to manipulate others, but find it hard to justify the struggle for their own growth.
 * Eugene J. Martin, Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978.


 * Having a sincere desire to want growth does not mean at that point you are committing yourself to growth.
 * Eugene J. Martin, Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978.


 * You will either step forward into growth, or you will step back into safety.
 * Abraham Maslow, as quoted in Creating We : Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking and Build a Healthy, Thriving Organization (2007) by Judith Glaser, p. 144.


 * Whenever we see a growing entity, whether it be a population, a corporation, a bank account, a rumor, an epidemic, or sales of a new product, we look for the reinforcing loops that are driving it and for the balancing loops that ultimately will constrain it. We know those balancing loops are there, even if they are not yet dominating the system's behavior, because no real physical system can grow forever. [...] An economy can be constrained by physical capital or monetary capital or labor or markets or management or resources or pollution.
 * Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008, pages 59 (ISBN 9781603580557).


 * Growth is the only evidence of life.
 * John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864).


 * Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
 * Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle II, line 136.


 * 'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.
 * Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle II, line 178.


 * Later in the afternoon I took a walk to the grocery store, wondering what might cause a woman to grow to such proportions. I think it must be terribly lonely stand seventy-five feet tall. You'dhave no irvacy and every bowel movement would evacuate entire cities. What would you eat? A roast chicken would be the size of a peanut. You might put away five dozen but leave with the feeling you were only snacking.
 * David Sedaris Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays


 * Gardener, for telling me these news of woe, Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
 * William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act III, scene 4, line 100.


 * "Ay," quoth my uncle Gloucester, "Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:" And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast, Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
 * William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act II, scene 4, line 12.


 * O, my lord, You said that idle weeds are fast in growth: The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
 * William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 1, line 102.


 * I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones,  That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part I.


 * The great world's altar stairs That slope through darkness up to God.
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), LV.


 * We fight not for ourselves but for growth, growth that goes on for ever. To-morrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for evermore. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater," he said, speaking with slow deliberation, "greater, my Brothers! And then-still greater. To grow and again-to grow. To grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of God. Growing. . . . Till the earth is no more than a footstool. … Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, and spread. … " He swung his arms heavenward — "There!"
 * H. G. Wells, The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, Chapter V : The Giant Leaguer (1904).


 * Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind; how the observation of last year seems childish, superficial; how this year — even this week — even with this new phrase — it seems to us that we have grown to a new maturity. It may be a fallacious persuasion, but at least it is stimulating, and so long as it persists, one does not stagnate.
 * Vita Sackville-West, Twelve Days (1928) p. 9; part of this appears to have also become paraphrased in the form:
 * Growth is exciting; growth is alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind.
 * As quoted in The Greatest Quotations of All-Time (2010) by Anthony St Peter, p. 281.


 * Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding, Creation's golden steps, to climb to Thee.
 * Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 344-45.


 * What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets; May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
 * Robert Browning, A Death in the Desert, line 447.


 * Treading beneath their feet all visible things, As steps that upwards to their Father's throne Lead gradual.
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Religious Musings.


 * Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.
 * Deuteronomy, XXXII. 15.


 * The lofty oak from a small acorn grows.
 * Lewis Duncombe, translation of De Minimis Maxima.


 * It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:   A lily of a day    Is fairer far in May, Although it falls and die that night— It was the plant and flower of Light.
 * Ben Jonson, Pindaric Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison.


 * Nor deem the irrevocable Past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last  To something nobler we attain.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ladder of St. Augustine.


 * Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ladder of St. Augustine, Stanza 2.


 * And so all growth that is not towards God Is growing to decay.
 * George MacDonald, Within and Without, Part I, scene 3.


 * Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into shape.
 * Michel de Montaigne, Apology for Raimond Sebond, Book II, Chapter XII.


 * "Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect himself above humanity." Here is a bon mot and a useful desire, but equally absurd. For to make the handful bigger than the hand, the armful bigger than the arm, and to hope to stride further than the stretch of our legs, is impossible and monstrous…. He may lift himself if God lend him His hand of special grace; he may lift himself … by means wholly celestial. It is for our Christian religion, and not for his Stoic virtue, to pretend to this divine and miraculous metamorphosis.
 * Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter XII.


 * Heu quotidie pejus! haec colonia retroversus crescit tanquam coda vituli.
 * Alas! worse every day! this colony grows backward like the tail of a calf.
 * Petronius, Cena, 44.


 * Fungino genere est: capite se totum tegit.
 * He is of the race of the mushroom; he covers himself altogether with his head.
 * Plautus, Trinummus, IV. 2. 9.


 * Post id, frumenti quum alibi messis maxima'st Tribus tantis illi minus reddit, quam obseveris. Heu! istic oportet obseri mores malos, Si in obserendo possint interfieri.
 * Besides that, when elsewhere the harvest of wheat is most abundant, there it comes up less by one-fourth than what you have sowed. There, methinks, it were a proper place for men to sow their wild oats, where they would not spring up.
 * Plautus, Trinummus, IV. 4. 128.


 * Im engen Kreis verengert sich der Sinn. Es wächst der Mensch mit seinen grössern Zwecken.
 * In a narrow circle the mind contracts Man grows with his expanded needs.
 * Friedrich Schiller, Prolog. I. 59.


 * Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping.
 * Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian, Chapter VIII.


 * Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch Till the white-wing'd reapers come.
 * Henry Vaughan, The Seed Growing Secretly.


 * Lambendo effingere.
 * Lick into shape.
 * Vergil. See Suetonius, Life of Vergil. Lambendo paulatim figurant. Licking a cub into shape. Pliny—Natural History, VIII. 36.


 * And that unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man.
 * William Wordsworth, Excursion. V. 158. (Knight's ed.) From Daniel's Essay XIV, in Coleridge, Friend. Introductory. Quam contempta res est homo, nisi super humana se erexerit. As said by Seneca. Amator Jesu et veritatis … potest se … elevare supra seipsum in spiritu. A lover of Jesus and of the truth … can lift himself above himself in spirit. Thomas á Kempis, Imitatio, II. 1.