"We are either progressing or retrograding all the while. There is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life"
About this Quote
Clarke’s line has the bracing, moral-engineering clarity of a 19th-century pulpit: life is a treadmill, and stepping off is not an option. As a Unitarian clergyman writing in an America intoxicated by reform movements, industrial acceleration, and a theology that increasingly linked faith to “improvement,” he frames existence as a permanent audit. You don’t just live; you are measured. The sentence moves like a sermon does, using absolutes to corner the listener. “Either...or” slams the door on excuses. “All the while” denies the comfort of pauses. “No such thing” isn’t argument so much as spiritual enforcement.
The intent is pastoral and disciplinary at once. Clarke isn’t merely encouraging ambition; he’s warning against the seductive fantasy of neutrality. In a religious context, “progressing” quietly means sanctification - growth in virtue, usefulness, and alignment with God’s purposes. “Retrograding” isn’t simply failure; it’s backsliding, the old Protestant fear that neglect becomes decay. The subtext is a theory of habit: character is not a possession but a practice, maintained only by attention.
It also works because it steals a concept from the era’s booming language of progress and repurposes it for the inner life. Industrial modernity promised upward motion in machines and markets; Clarke insists the soul is subject to the same physics. The line’s power is its unease: it turns comfort into risk. Rest isn’t rest; it’s drift.
The intent is pastoral and disciplinary at once. Clarke isn’t merely encouraging ambition; he’s warning against the seductive fantasy of neutrality. In a religious context, “progressing” quietly means sanctification - growth in virtue, usefulness, and alignment with God’s purposes. “Retrograding” isn’t simply failure; it’s backsliding, the old Protestant fear that neglect becomes decay. The subtext is a theory of habit: character is not a possession but a practice, maintained only by attention.
It also works because it steals a concept from the era’s booming language of progress and repurposes it for the inner life. Industrial modernity promised upward motion in machines and markets; Clarke insists the soul is subject to the same physics. The line’s power is its unease: it turns comfort into risk. Rest isn’t rest; it’s drift.
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