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About this quote

What does it mean?
Bryant celebrates humanity’s freeing from constraints, questioning any limits on its unstoppable progress.
In plain terms
Humanity sheds its chains and races forward without limits.
What can you take from it?
Embrace progress and resist imposed restrictions.

Where it applies

  • technological advancement
  • social movements

Putting it to work

  • advocating innovation
  • challenging barriers

Questions to consider

  • What are healthy limits to progress?
  • How do we balance freedom with responsibility?

Another view

Unchecked progress can have negative consequences.

More from William Cullen Bryant

  1. Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen; Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

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  2. Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now Goest down in glory! ever beautiful And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou Colourest the eastern heaven and nig…

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  3. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

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