Quotes About Civilization

Our civilization has moved through three world views: from paganism (no pity and no pacifism) to Christianity (pity but not pacifism) to modernity (pity and pacifism). It is now moving to postmodernity, which is a new pacifism, a pacifism without spiritual warfare, a war on the very notion of spiritual warfare, and a war without pity or mercy for its enemy

The materialistic consciousness of our culture … is the root cause of the global crisis; it is not our business ethics, our politics or even our personal lifestyles. These are symptoms of a deeper underlying problem. Our whole civilization is unsustainable. And the reason that it is unsustainable is that our value system, the consciousness with which we approach the world, is an unsustainable mode of consciousness.

There are plenty of violent people, but for any randomly selected person today the chances of meeting a violent death at the hands of his or her fellow humans is lower now than it has ever been in human history.

For all I know, war is "natural" to human beings—it certainly seems to have been a preoccupation for many societies, in very different circumstances, over a long period of history—but I have no intention of going to war to make sure that I act in accordance with nature.

great empires die not by murder, but by suicide.

For example, the populations of both the Roman Empire and Han China grew to 50–60 million people at the peak. This is the point when we surpassed the social insects. During the past two millennia no other animal anywhere has rivaled human societies in size and complexity. ·Ã¢â'¬Â¢· In

has profoundly modified the whole trend of modern civilisation, imposing her thought, her standards, her literary forms, her imagery, her visions and dreams wherever she is known. But Germany is the supreme example of her triumphant spiritual tyranny. The Germans have imitated the Greeks more slavishly: they have been obsessed by them more utterly…

So here you are near the end of the world, savages, beings who, given the time, would build up a great civilization again. You don't have the time, and the long, long story, the many-eons tale of humankind, will end. For what reason? I don't know. The universe, looked at logically, is, despite all its intricate order and irresistible physical principles, senseless.

Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.

If this place were closer to Terra there'd be empty beer cans and plastic plates strewn around. The trees would be gone. There'd be old jet motors in the water. The beaches would stink to high heaven. Terran Development would have a couple of million little plastic houses set up everywhere.

Don't let anybody kid you about the wheel, son; money was mankind's first significant invention.

Si este lugar estuviera màs próximo a Terra, habría latas de cerveza vacias y platos de plástico por todas partes. Los árboles habrían desaparecido. Habría motores a reacción viejos tirados en el agua. Las playas despedirían un hedor de mil demonios. Construcciones Terranas habría instalado ya un par de millones de pequeñas casas de plástico.

You're confusing technology with culture. You look at this and say, 'What a great civilization man has built,' when you really mean, 'What a great technology mankind has developed.' There's all the difference in the world. Technology is of the mind and hands. Civilization is of the spirit—and spiritually we are still in the Dark Ages.

it is always the women who rebuild the civilizations that the men have done their best to destroy

If peace is to come to earth through change in man's environment, instead of through change in man himself, it will never come. -- Philip Mauro in The Number of Man the Climax of Civilization

We all show false faces to the world, and a good thing too, for a hundred reasons. We should be consistent with our friends and lovers, so as not to be unkind. But if in your heart you are not kind, it's better to be false, to act kindly even if you don't feel it, because the deed is important and not the reason for it. That kind of falsity is the triumph of our civilization.

We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of Libraries it opens, not the number it closes down.

Not to be rich, not to be famous, not to be mighty, not even to be happy, but to be civilized--that was the dream of his life.

Era estranho pensar, ali no meio de todos os colegas de Coleman, que pessoas tão instruídas, tão imbuídas de uma civilidade profissional, houvessem embarcado com tanto entusiasmo no venerável sonho humano de uma situação em que um único homem se torna a própria encarnação do mal. No entanto, essa necessidade existe, é eterna e profunda.

No ancient story, not even Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, has remained as popular through the course of time. The story of Rama appears as old as civilization and has a fresh appeal for every generation.

War is the enemy of civilization. We cannot grow through war, Xander. It drags us down, filling our hearts with hatred and thoughts of revenge.

A ditch-pig culture begets a shit-house body politic.

People always say that in England we lead shallow lives. Our lives must be shallow because we live in a country where nobody believes in anything any more. My whole life, I've been told: 'Western civilization? An old bitch gone in the teeth,' And so people say, go to Israel. Because in Israel at least people are fighting. In Israel, they're fighting for something they believe in.

In all the socialist literature I had read, there was hardly a chapter devoted to the creation of wealth, the problem of getting people to work or to behave in a civilized manner. Socialist theory was exclusively addressed to the conquest of power and the division of wealth that someone else had created. Was it any surprise that socialist societies had broken world records in making their inhabitants poor?