Quotes About Civilization

The artist expresses his love through his works. That is civilization.

I side with the West because there is an abyss between totalitarianism and democracy, an obvious fact of which we must never lose sight.

There is a gentleness, a lightness, an element of freedom and, in a word, of civilization, that makes this country one of the few countries in the world where, despite everything, you can still breathe freely.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? The reason is clearly that the human heart as modern civilisation has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied, because it feels deply, perhaps even unconsciously, that it has somehow missed the meaning of life, that perhaps others, but not we ourselves, have secured the good things which nature offers man's enjoyment.

My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.

I think that in all descriptions of the good life here on earth we must assume a certain basis of animal vitality and animal instinct; without this, life becomes tame and uninteresting. Civilization should be something added to this, not substituted for it; the ascetic saint and the detached sage fail in this respect to be complete human beings. A small number of them may enrich a community; but a world composed of them would die of boredom.

The mark of a civilized man is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep.

it is sad really to see the kind of boys that are common everywhere. No mind, no independent thought, no love of good books nor of the higher refinements of morality. It is really sad that the upper classes of a civilised and (supposed to be) moral country can produce nothing better.

The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant.

The barbarian invasion put an end, for six centuries, to the civilization of western Europe. It lingered in Ireland until the Danes destroyed it in the ninth century;

The world at present is full of angry self-centred groups, each incapable of viewing human life as a whole, each willing to destroy civilization rather than yield an inch

Loss of zest in civilized society is very largely due to the restrictions upon liberty which are essential to our way of life.

Let us not delude ourselves with the hope that the best is within the reach of all, or that emotion uniformed by thought can ever attain the highest level. All such optimisms seem to me dangerous to civilisation, and the outcome of a heart not yet sufficiently mortified.

Civilization checks impulse not only through forethought, which is a self-administered check, but also through law, custom, and religion.

One comes across white men occasionally who suffer under the delusion that China is not a civilized country. Such men have forgotten what constitutes civilization.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Mohammedans were more civilized and more humane than the Christians. Christians persecuted Jews, especially at times of religious excitement; the Crusades were associated with appalling pogroms. In Mohammedan countries, on the contrary, Jews were not in any way ill treated.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization .

The primary motive of sexual ethics as they have existed in Western civilisation since pre-Christian times has been to secure that degree of female virtue without which the patriarchal family becomes impossible, since paternity is uncertain.

A king or despot can maintain his power if he is astute in internal politics and successful externally. If he is quasi-divine, his dynasty may be prolonged indefinitely. But the growth of civilisation puts an end to belief in his divinity; defeat in war is not always avoidable; and political astuteness cannot be an invariable attribute of monarchs. Therefore sooner or later, if there is no external conquest, there is revolution, and the monarchy is either abolished or shorn of its power.

As civilization progresses, the earthly sanctions become more secure and the divine sanctions less so. People see more and more reason to think that if they steal they will be caught and less and less reason to think that if they are not caught God will nevertheless punish them. Even highly religious people in the present day hardly expect to go to Hell for stealing. They reflect that they can repent in time, and that in any case Hell is neither so certain nor so hot as it used to be.

Bir trenle Kaliforniya ovalar?n? geçerken bir sabun reklam?n?n hoparlörden yükselen gürültüsünü duymamaya çal???yordum; o s?rada yaÅŸl? bir çiftçi güleç bir yüzle yan?ma yaklaÅŸarak, Bu zamanda nereye gidersen git, uygarl?ktan yakan? kurtaramazs?n, dedi. Heyhat! Ne kadar doÄŸru!..

If there is to be less envy, means must be found for remedying this state of affairs, and if no such means are found our civilization is in danger of going down to destruction in an orgy of hatred.

Descubrir un sistema para evitar la guerra es una necesidad vital para nuestra civilización, pero ningún sidtema tiene posibilidades de funcionar mientras los hombres sean tan desdichados que el exterminio mutuo les parezca menos terrible que afrontar continuamente la luz del día.