A Quote by Charles Sumner

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

Charles Sumner

Quote Topics

Bright Consummate Excellence Flower Moral Moral Excellence Progress

Quote Author

Charles Sumner
American - Politician
January 6, 1811 - March 11, 1874

As the excellence of steel is strength, and the excellence of art is beauty, so the excellence of mankind is moral character.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

Excellence-moral, ethical, personal excellence-is worth whatever it costs.

Charles R. Swindoll

I know I can not paint a flower, I can not paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint colour I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time.

Georgia O'Keeffe

The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. But we cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for; that task is left to others. With the desire for excellence comes, therefore, the desire for approbation. And this distinguishes intellectual excellence from moral excellence; for the latter has no necessity of human tribunal; it is more inclined to shrink from the public than to invite the public to be its judge.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

A flower is not a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements - sunshine, clouds, time, space, earth, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe. If we return any one of these non-flower elements to its source, there will be no flower.

Nhat Hanh

God doesn't help. I think that's a knockdown argument. I think that it really shows that whatever moral knowledge we have and whatever moral progress we make in our knowledge or whatever progress we make in our moral knowledge is not coming really from religion. It's coming from the very hard work really of moral philosophy, of trying to ground our moral reasonings.

Rebecca Goldstein

This is what evolution means--ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life.

Lyman Abbott

Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Bright flower! whose home is everywhere Bold in maternal nature's care And all the long year through the heir Of joy or sorrow, Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see The forest through.

William Wordsworth

Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing?

Richard Louv

The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.

Sun Tzu

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

Jonathan Haidt

Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as Garfield Gets Spayed, and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: In Search of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold of Excellence, Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, etc.

Dave Barry

Very often, people are obsessed with what others think of them. It's like if a flower wants to be a cactus or a palm but it's not. A flower is a flower, and that's enough. That's all you have to do is be a flower.