Quotes About Civilization

I knew that Britain and the United States were beacons of freedom and democracy at a time when my life - and Western civilisation itself - was at grave risk.

Greece gave democracy to the rest of the world.

It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.

The vast country is still there, but it has somehow been altered by intrusions, peopled to death. It is all gone, all changed, all tamed and pacified and cleaned and boiled and sanitized and made healthy and politically correct.

the unconscious cannot be civilized.

The advent of civilization--an overly optimistic word--didn't change things as much as one might think, because no matter how large a city or empire became there was always another them to go out and kill. And when organized religion really got going... well, there's a fantastic excuse to murder people in bunches.

D]espite the patina of civility coating most of modern society, underneath it is a thick layer of savagery.

One of the goals of classical education is to discern the appropriate manner by which the mistreated and oppressed can challenge their oppressors without destroying their civilization.

It is not human nature to dominate, but to create. Yes, humankind falters every now and then, but you know how to learn from your past mistakes. You've done it before, and you can do it again. I believe that ultimately, you will create a civilization that preserves and protects even as it grows. Do you understand? The spirits will always have a place in this world, as long as you -- and humans like you -- create a place for us. - Lady Tienhai, Guardian Spirit/Queen

They were functioning, Nicholas. They bought and sold; they worked, and paid their taxes—

Taken aback by the discovery, a little too late, that tropical rain has the volume of a bathroom shower, I splashed on to a train for Panama City, put up at the Hotel Europa and restored equanimity with Planter's Punch. A world in which so delectable a drink existed, as well as the thirst necessary to deal with two successive pints of it, could not be wholly bad. In the evening I set out to inspect North American civilisation.

No less enthusiastically, Churchill saw that air power 'may ultimately lead to a form of control over semi-civilised countries which will be found very effective and infinitely cheaper', adding that, 'I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes

George Bernard Shaw

El hombre es civilizado en la medida que comprende a un gato.

without good manners, human society would be intolerable and impossible

You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured—to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?

If we desire a certain type of civilisation and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it.

You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured—to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?

he examinado los maravillosos inventos del hombre; y le aseguro que en las artes de vivir no ha inventado nada, pero que en las artes de matar supera a la Naturaleza y produce con la química y la maquinaria todas las matanzas de las plagas, de la peste y del hambre.

What is taxation? Taxation is what you pay to live in a civilized society- what you pay to have democracy and opportunity.

A survival tale peels away the niceties and comforts of civilization. Suddenly, all the technology and education in the world means nothing. I think all of us wonder while reading a survival tale, 'What would I have done in this situation? Would I have made it?'

I just think we're on this rock orbiting a sun that's going to go out, and I don't know that human society is necessarily a wonderful thing for the planet. I think people can be kind to one another and share things, but I don't know that this particular iteration of civilization is to be preferred to any other.

I've been thinking about the distorted view of science that prevails in our culture. I've been wondering about this, because our civilization is completely dependent on science and high technology, yet most of us are alienated from science.

All human endeavor, all human civilization, is the act of solving collective action problems. Should we put out our own fires, or should we have a fire department? Should we build roads, or should we hack our way through the woods from one factory to another?