Quotes About Civilization

Gifted teachers master the patience required for the unending business of transmitting civilization down the generations, transforming biological facts – children – into social artifacts called citizens. It is wearying work and it is a wonder teachers can summon the stamina for it.

You understand absolutely nothing about modern civilization unless you first admit that it is a universal conspiracy against all interior life.

On ne comprend absolument rien à la civilisation moderne si l'on n'admet pas tout d'abord qu'elle est une conspiration universelle contre toute espèce de vie intérieure.

America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

Es el hombre vivo lo que hay que buscar bajo el polvo de los archivos y en el silencio de los museos.

As the psychologist Carl Jung once said, 'If our civilization were to perish, it would be due more to stupidity than to evil.

The uncivilized behavior of some human beings in a zoo has to be seen to be believed.

I was struck, as always, that a heathen poet from long ago should know so much of the human heart, and how little that heart changes, though great cities fall and new dispensations sweep away the old and pagan creeds.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential - generosity, service, self-sacrifice, unselfishness and duty.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.

States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts - for democracy.

Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact - it is silence which isolates.

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

But what civilization was not founded on adventure, and how long could one exist without it? What justifies the risk of life? Some answer, the attainment of knowledge. Some say wealth, or power, is sufficient cause. I believe the risks are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.

from various periods but (since its site was obliterated

Jede Generation hat ihre Illusionen über die Zivilisation, die einen glauben, an ihrem Aufflammen teilzuhaben, die anderen, Zeugen ihres Erlöschens zu sein. In Wahrheit lodert und schwelt und erlischt sie immer gleichzeitig, je nachdem, unter welchem Blickwinkel wir sie betrachten.

This generation was richer only in illusions; in every other way it was similar to any other. It had the feeling of both lighting the fires of a new civilization and extinguishing the last flickers of another. Everything appeared as an exciting new game on that ancient bridge, which shone in the moonlight of those July nights, clean, young and unalterable, strong and lovely in its perfection, stronger than all that time might bring and man imagine or do.