Civilization Quotes: Wisdom and Insights from the Ages (Page 2)

"In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office"

Ambrose Bierce, Journalist

"Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan"

Martin Luther King Jr., Minister

"We have always been taught that navigation is the result of civilization, but modern archeology has demonstrated very clearly that this is not so"

Thor Heyerdahl, Explorer

"Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication - particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials"

Thor Heyerdahl, Explorer

"The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master"

Henry James, Writer

"One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left"

Henry James, Writer

"The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"The first requisite of civilization is that of justice"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion"

Thomas Carlyle, Writer

"The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison"

Karl Marx, Philosopher

"If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace"

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President

"Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages"

Gertrude Stein, Author

"Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them"

Bill Cosby, Comedian

"We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others"

Will Rogers, Actor

"You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way"

Will Rogers, Actor

"Without civilization, we would not turn into animals, but vegetables"

Mason Cooley, Writer

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization"

George Orwell, Author

"Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell"

George Orwell, Author

"Speech is civilization itself"

Thomas Mann, Writer

"It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance it allotted length"

Helen Keller, Author

"A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"Civilization is the making of civil persons"

John Ruskin, Writer

"I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding"

Steven Wright, Comedian

"If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win"

Thomas Sowell, Economist

"Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late"

Thomas Sowell, Economist

"Women know what men have long forgotten. The ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family"

Clare Boothe Luce, Dramatist

"Few can contemplate without a sense of exhilaration the splendid achievements of practical energy and technical skill, which, from the latter part of the seventeenth century, were transforming the face of material civilization, and of which England was the daring, if not too scrupulous, pioneer"

E. F. Schumacher, Economist

"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice"

Will Durant, Historian

"The family is the nucleus of civilization"

Will Durant, Historian

"Education is the transmission of civilization"

Will Durant, Historian

"Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity"

Will Durant, Historian

"Civilization in its present form hasn't got long"

James Lovelock, Scientist

"Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence. Civilization is the subordination of the latter to the former"

Karl Kraus, Writer

"We must not try to force him to take civilization immediately in its complete form, but under just laws, guaranteeing to Indians equal civil laws, the Indian question, a source of such dishonor to our country and of shame to true patriots, will soon be a thing of the past"

George Crook, Soldier

"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts"

Camille Paglia, Author

"Iraq is no diversion. It is a place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror, we must not waver"

George W. Bush, President

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