Quotes About Civilization

When the history of civilization is written, it will be a biological history and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine.

Human history in essence is the history of ideas.

The soul of our civilization depends upon the civilization of our soul. The imagination of our culture calls for a culture of the imagination.

But that was not all. He foresaw a time when men, exultant in the technique of homicide, would rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing would be in danger, every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless—all would be lost like the lost books of Livy, or wrecked as the English wrecked the Summer Palace in Pekin.

I often think that the Romans were fortunate; their civilization reached as far as hot baths without touching the fatal knowledge of machinery.

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization - The safe men. The compromisers. The moneymakers. The muddlers-through. Politics is full of them... so is businesses... so is the church. They're popular. Successful. Some of them work hard, other are slack, but all of them could tell a good story. Never where there such charming gravediggers in the world's history.

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization -- the safe men, the compromisers, the money-makers, the muddlers-through.

I live in a library now, surrounded by the greatest works of literature in the world, but I'm here to tell you, reader, literature is not the foundation of civilization. The foundation of civilization is hot water. Civilization is plumbing.

Civilizaton rests on the assumption that the universe is kindly disposed towards mankind and intended for our benefit. Imagine the upheaval were it to become widespread knowledge that that is not so.

The world was becoming a zoo, without cages.

I've always felt like we were the civilized ones, fighting against the ones enjoying blowing up kindergartens, taking down civilian airliners, shooting up shopping malls.

Laws fixed, certain, and uniform, are said to be the distinguishing traits of civilized from savage communities. In these last, seldom are any laws, unless it be the arbitrary and uncertain will of the strongest.

Since the dawn of time, traditional marriage - the union between one man and one woman - has been the building block of civilization, and at no point in our nation's history has that foundation been under more severe attack than now.

After Nigeria, we are the second biggest black African nation. We are the headquarters of the African Union. We are the only African country that has never been colonized. This is perhaps the last surviving African civilization.

We strain to tell Americans and aliens in this country that there's nothing unique about America, nothing unique about American civilization, nothing that requires their allegiance, nothing of great value that they should sacrifice for.

There is a view of Russian exceptionalism, that they are a unique civilisation, a view right since Ivan the Terrible that Russia is a special civilisation with a special culture. Putin is pushing that now.

America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.

Mars is key to humanity's future in space. It is the closest planet that has all the resources needed to support life and technological civilization. Its complexity uniquely demands the skills of human explorers, who will pave the way for human settlers.

We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page.

The reactionary percentage of the electorate in these United States has been relatively constant since McCarthy's day; I'd estimate it as hovering around 30 percent. A minority, but one never all that enamored of the niceties of democracy - they see themselves as fighting for the survival of civilization, after all.

Civilizations may clash, but they surely fall if robbed of light from above. It could come from the 1 percent or the 99%, but a guiding light is needed to keep the United States from becoming the rubble of past great civilizations.

The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism.

The Italian Revolution was fought first of all to obtain the liberty and unity of the nation, and then, with that achieved, to join the freest and most advanced nations in inaugurating a new era of peace, justice, and joint cooperation in the work of civilization.

Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization.