"Progress was all right. Only it went on too long"
About this Quote
“Progress was all right. Only it went on too long” is Thurber at his most deceptively polite: he grants the premise, then slips in the knife. The first sentence sounds like a reasonable, civic-minded concession. The second turns “progress” from a triumphal march into an overextended dinner guest. That’s the gag and the critique in one move: modernity isn’t condemned for existing; it’s condemned for refusing to stop, for becoming an ideology of perpetual upgrading.
The intent is less Luddite than exhaustion. Thurber lived through the early 20th century’s acceleration: mass advertising, automobiles, radio, mechanized war, the retooling of daily life into a system of schedules, gadgets, and noise. Against the era’s sales pitch that newer equals better, he stages a comic reversal: maybe “progress” has diminishing returns. Maybe the promised liberation curdles into a relentless demand to adapt.
Subtextually, the line targets a very American form of optimism that can’t admit completion. If progress is always happening, then stability is treated as laziness and contentment as a moral failure. Thurber’s deadpan exposes how that mindset quietly erodes human scale: relationships, attention, rest, the right to be finished.
What makes it work is the understatement. No manifesto, no alarm bells - just a mild complaint phrased like small talk. Thurber weaponizes that casualness to puncture grand narratives. He suggests the most modern feeling isn’t wonder at the future; it’s fatigue from keeping up with it.
The intent is less Luddite than exhaustion. Thurber lived through the early 20th century’s acceleration: mass advertising, automobiles, radio, mechanized war, the retooling of daily life into a system of schedules, gadgets, and noise. Against the era’s sales pitch that newer equals better, he stages a comic reversal: maybe “progress” has diminishing returns. Maybe the promised liberation curdles into a relentless demand to adapt.
Subtextually, the line targets a very American form of optimism that can’t admit completion. If progress is always happening, then stability is treated as laziness and contentment as a moral failure. Thurber’s deadpan exposes how that mindset quietly erodes human scale: relationships, attention, rest, the right to be finished.
What makes it work is the understatement. No manifesto, no alarm bells - just a mild complaint phrased like small talk. Thurber weaponizes that casualness to puncture grand narratives. He suggests the most modern feeling isn’t wonder at the future; it’s fatigue from keeping up with it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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