Quotes About Civilization

So how do magistrates understand the word civilization? Where do we stand with it? Justice reduced to subterfuge and trickery! The law to machinations! Appalling!

It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory

All civilisation begins with a theocracy and ends with a democracy. This law of liberty succeeding unity is written in architecture.

In that pallid and sullen shadow in which he crawled, whenever he turned his head and endeavoured to raise his eyes, he saw, with mingled rage and terror, forming, massing, and mounting up out of sight above him with horrid escarpments, a kind of frightful accumulation of things, of laws, of prejudices, of men, and of acts, the outlines of which escaped him, the weight of which appalled him, and which was no other than that prodigious pyramid that we call civilization.

Ingrates! says the garment, I protected you in inclement weather. Why will you have nothing to do with me? I have just come from the deep sea, says the fish. I have been a rose, says the perfume. I have loved you, says the corpse. I have civilized you, says the convent. To this there is but one reply: In former days.

It combined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity, a curious variety of civilization; a tiger with a simper.

The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.

For our part, if we were forced to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we should choose the barbarians.

the highest monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their eternity to its mischievous pranks.

The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. This is a mistake. It still exists; but it weighs only upon the woman, and it is called prostitution.

and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words

The solitary man is a modified savage, accepted by civilization. He who wanders most is most alone; hence his continual change of place. To remain anywhere long, suffocated him with the sense of being tamed. He spent his life in moving on.

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of

The poacher lives in the forest, the smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea. The cities make ferocious men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side.

There occurred, infamous to relate, inundations of the sewer. At times, that stomach of civilization digested badly, the cess-pool flowed back into the throat of the city, and Paris got an after-taste of her own filth. These resemblances of the sewer to remorse had their good points; they were warnings; very badly accepted, however; the city waxed indignant at the audacity of its mire, and did not admit that the filth should return. Drive it out better.

As cidades produzem homens ferozes, porque produzem homens corruptos.

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny;

S'è detto che la schiavitù è sparita dalla civiltà europea: errore! Esiste sempre, ma pesa soltanto sulla donna e si chiama prostituzione. Pesa sulla donna, ossia sulla grazia, sulla debolezza, sulla beltà, sulla maternità. E questa non è già una delle minori vergogne dell'uomo.

On dit que l'esclavage a disparu de la civilisation européenne. C'est une erreur. Il existe toujours, mais il ne pèse plus que sur la femme, et il s'appelle prostitution.

La historia de las ciudades se refleja en sus cloacas.

That there should be so great a concentration of vitality, so large a world contained within the mind of a single man, must in the end have been fatal to civilisation.

Há na nossa civilização horas terríveis; são os momentos em que o direito penal sentencia um naufrágio. Que fúnebre é esse minuto em que a sociedade se distancia e consuma o abandono irreparável de um ser pensante!

La montagne, la mer, la forêt, font des hommes sauvages. Elles développent le côté farouche, mais souvent sans détruire le côté humain.

The inordinate weight of this man was disturbing the balance of human destiny. This individual alone counted for more than the rest of the world put together. These excessive quantities of human vitality concentrated in a single person – the world going to one man's head – would be fatal to civilization if it were to continue.