Civilization Quotes

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

"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

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

Steven Wright, Comedian

"Speech is civilization itself"

Thomas Mann, Writer

"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

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

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"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

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

Clare Boothe Luce, Dramatist

"When humor goes, there goes civilization"

Erma Bombeck, Journalist

"We must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about - farming replacing hunting"

Jacques Yves Cousteau, Explorer

"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

"The center of Western culture is Greece, and we have never lost our ties with the architectural concepts of that ancient civilization"

Stephen Gardiner, Architect

"Without adventure civilization is in full decay"

Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematician

"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

"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top"

Hunter S. Thompson, Journalist

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

James Lovelock, Scientist

"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours"

Grover Cleveland, President

"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

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject"

Ayn Rand, Writer

"A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Novelist

"A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Novelist

"The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization"

Robert Anton Wilson, Writer

"One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals"

Rutherford B. Hayes, President

"Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization"

Edmond De Goncourt, Writer

"The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work"

Simone Weil, Philosopher

"I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded"

Simone Weil, Philosopher

"The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men"

Henry Ellis, Psychologist

"We think we've got it taken care of now. Multiplayer is something that's hard to do in a turn-based game, especially a turn-based game that lasts a long time, like Civilization"

Sid Meier, Scientist

"Right now we're working on finishing up Pirates! for the Xbox, we're developing Civilization IV and we've got a couple other games in development that we'll tell you about soon"

Sid Meier, Scientist

"Well, right now, I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean, probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it"

Natalie Portman, Actress

"The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way"

Milton Friedman, Economist

"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government"

Milton Friedman, Economist

"There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war"

Reinhold Niebuhr, Theologian

"Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future"

Ulysses S. Grant, President