Quotes About Civilization

What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?

It seems that a civilization-wide catastrophe involving the "death" of all these cities occurred at approximately the same time, around 1500—the time of the Spanish conquest. Yet the Spanish never conquered the region; they never explored or even penetrated these remote jungles.

The Maya created a vibrant and brilliant society that, in the end, failed to adjust to a changing environment and the needs of its people;

the Mosquitia civilization vanished everywhere all at once—in a sudden, civilization-wide catastrophe.

This discovery will draw us closer to the day when humanity can cast aside its evil ways and eventually join the galactic civilization.

Sometimes, a society can see its end approaching from afar and still not be able to adapt, like the Maya; at other times, the curtain drops without warning and the show is over. No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate.

What Strong realized right away was that these were not Maya cities: The Maya built with stone, while this region had been extensively settled by a separate, sophisticated culture that built great earthen mounds. This was an entirely new culture.

Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

I did not really seek liberty. I am a civilised man. The civilised man knows there is no such thing. Only the younger and cruder nations put the word Liberty on their banner. There must always be a planned framework of security. And the essence of civilisation is that the way of life should be a moderate one.

Oh, yes, Madame. I have known of—shall we say A?—being removed by B solely in order to benefit C. Political murders often come under the same heading. Someone is considered to be harmful to civilization and is removed on that account. Such people forget that life and death are the affair of the good God.

Little by little the head emerged, preserved by the sludge for about 2,500 years. There it was–the biggest ivory head ever found: a soft, pale brownish colour, the hair black, the faintly coloured lips with the enigmatic smile of one of the maidens of the Akropolis. The Lady of the Well–the Mona Lisa, as the Iraqi Director of Antiquities insisted on calling her–she has her place now in the new museum at Baghdad: one of the most exciting things ever to be found. There

Mas nós não somos selvagens! Somos civilizados hoje em dia. - Há diferentes tipos de civilizações... - disse Bob vagamente. - Além disso, eu prefiro pensar que todos temos algo de selvageria dentro de nós... Se conseguirmos pensar em uma boa desculpa para deixá-la escapar.

Civilized misery, she thought, is the worse misery. Grey and hopeless. But now she thought, I shall escape.

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

Colonization and civilization? In dealing with this subject, the commonest curse is to be the dupe in good faith of a collective hypocrisy that cleverly misrepresents problems, the better to legitimize the hateful solutions provided for them.

Où veux-je en venir ? A cette idée : que nul ne colonise innocemment, que nul non plus ne colonise impunément ; qu'une nation qui colonise, qu'une civilisation qui justifie la colonisation - donc la force - est une civilisation malade, une civilisation moralement atteinte, qui, irrésistiblement, de conséquence à conséquence, de reniement en reniement, appelle son Hitler, je veux dire son châtiment.

And I say that between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance; that out of all the colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all the colonial statutes that have been drawn up, out of all the memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries, there could not come a single human value.

Lors donc que Rome, dans cette prétendue marche triomphale vers la civilisation unique, eut détruit, l'une après l'autre, Carthage, l'Egypte, la Grèce, la Judée, la Perse, la Dacie, les Gaules, il arriva qu'elle avait dévoré elle-même les digues qui la protégeaient contre l'océan humain sous lequel elle devait périr.

What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.

A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.

A bra was not for little kids who dreamed of being astronauts. What are you gonna do with boobs in space? Unless they are currency for some far-flung civilization, all they're going to do is interfere with proper oxygen flow inside your space suit.

Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change.

If we wish to understand Indian thought, we must return to its sources, that is, to the great civilization that preceded the arrival of the Aryans, which has continued to the present time and of which the Shaiva religion, the cosmological theory called Sâmkhyä, the practices of Yogä, as well as the bases of what we consider to be the Hindu philosophy, are part.