If this was adulthood, the only improvement she could detect inher situationwasthat nowshecould eat dessert without eating her vegetables.

-Alther, Lisa ne¤  e Reed
  Kinflicks, ch.2.

The average condition of the people improving or deteriorating, depends upon whether population is advancing faster than improvement, or improvement than population.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Principles of Political Economy, with Some Applications to Social Philosophy.

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity and judgement with which it is any where directed, as applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.1.

It is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave offeating animals, assurelyas the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they come in contact with the more civilized.

-Thoreau, Henry David
  Walden, or Life in theWoods,'Higher Laws'.