Quotes About Civilization

Well hath he been called one of the architects of civilization.

The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.

What makes a civilization real to its inhabitants, in the end, is not just the splendid edifices at it centre, nor even the smooth functioning of the institutions they house. At its core, a civilization is the texts that are taught in its schools, learned by its students and recollected in times of tribulation.

The success of a civilization is measured not just in its aesthetic achievements but also, and surely more importantly, in the duration and quality of life of its citizens.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained

The transmission of knoledge from generation to generation is one of the miracles of civilization.

The earliest examples of reading and writing date back many thousands of years. As long ago as 8000 BC, people were using small clay tokens engraved with simple symbols to keep track of quantities of livestock and other goods.

What we're experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization: we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.

Educated middle-class people such as the young Adolf Berle had been raised on the idea that American civilization was at heart one of small-town merchants and independent farmers. Now

Adam Ferguson], 'Of the Principle of

The unconscious does not coo sweet lyrics or unroll immaculate and measured prose, it howls and raves like the shackled and tortured beast that our civilization has made of it, and when the fetters are momentarily loosened the unconscious does not thank the ego for this meagre relief, but hisses, spits, and bites, as any wild thing would.

Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.

When he is stripped of the Christian tunic and the classical toga, there is nothing left of the European but a pale-skinned barbarian.

It is not just that human trash accumulates in cities—it is that cities turn what accumulates in them into trash.

Al repudiar los ritos, el hombre se reduce a animal que copula y come.

The barbarian either totally mocks or totally worships. Civilization is a smile that discreetly combines irony and respect.

Anguish over the decline of civilization is the affliction of a reactionary. The democrat cannot lament the disappearance of something of which he is ignorant.

Leveling is the barbarian's substitute for order.

Rulers who represent only a minority have to invent civilization in order not to perish. The delegates of a majority, on the other hand, can be vulgar, rude, cruel, with impunity. The greater the majority that supports him, the less cautious the ruler is, the less tolerant, the less respectful of human diversity. When rulers deem themselves governors of all humanity, terror is near.

Without the spread of oriental cults and without the Germanic invasions, Hellenistic civilization would have initiated, with Rome as its starting-point, the Americanization of the world.

Man no longer knows how to invent anything that does not serve to kill better or to make the world a little more vulgar.

Civilizations are not made "avec des idées" but with good manners.

Man emerges from the beast when he orders his instincts hierarchically.

The only indices of civilization are the clarity, lucidity, order, good manners of everyday prose.