Quotes About Civilization

Et c'est là, en même temps, ce qui donne l'illusion du progrès à ceux qui, ne connaissant qu'une civilisation, voient exclusivement la direction dans laquelle elle se développe, croient qu'elle est la seule possible, et ne se rendent pas compte que ce développement sur un point peut être largement compensé par une régression sur d'autres points.

An altogether extraordinary fact is the rapidity with which Medieval civilization was completely forgotten; already in the seventeenth century, men had lost all idea of what it had been, and its surviving monuments no longer had any meaning for them, either intellectually or even esthetically;

There is a growing sentiment in America today that animals, too, have rights and that we collectively should afford them, at the very least, more respect and consideration as the sentient, autonomous beings they clearly are. Of course, this flies in the face of Western civilization's stated assumption of man's dominion over the beasts. The way we resolve this conflict in our culture, or fail to, has much to do with who we are, who we will become, and the legacy we leave for generations to come.

I think replacement is an esential gesture, a change of charachter, an exchange of charachter essential to our civilization, and replacement is ofcourse also the introduction of falsity in objects and also in ideas of men, replacement is the introduction of falsity, of imitation, of copying, and the social expression of global replacism is mass negationism.

The passions smothered by modem civilization are doubly ferocious when awakened

5,000–3,000 BC)

He said he had no desire to live in a country that glorified violence and he found France more civilized.

Can one young man change a civilization?

Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love.

Western civilisation, the élitists all understood, is built upon discrimination: a culture that does not rest on discrimination, that penalises people who discriminate, or rewards the undiscriminating, is worth very little and has only callow, childish pleasures.

Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is: "Have they discovered evolution yet?"

He thought of how the world organises its affairs so that civilisation every day commits crimes for which any individual would be imprisoned for life. And how people accept this either by ignoring it and calling it current affairs or politics or wars

I believe profoundly in the importance of museums; I would go as far as to say that you can judge a society by the quality of its museums.

Our civilization rests on a faulty premise, that the world is physical and mechanical, energy and matter only. We do not pay for it in our bridges, we pay for it in the quality of our lives. "

No civilized person ever goes to bed the same day he gets up.

Alan Moorehead in The Fatal Impact (1966).

What was invented with civilization was the ability of some to deny sensuality to others.

Famine was the mark of a maturing agricultural society, the very badge of civilization.

Morality fell with society

No one can ever be abandoned, anywhere, ever. Full-out, four-alarm, symphonic narrative mayhem plays out all around them. She has no idea, and there's no way he can let her know. Civilized yards are all alike. Every wild yard is wild in its own way.

No one can ever be abandoned, anywhere, ever. Fullout, four-alarm, symphonic narrative mayhem plays out all around them. She has no idea, and there's no way he can let her know. Civilized yards are all alike. Every wild yard is wild in its own way.

They all thought that civilized Germans would not stand for anything really rough happening." Szilard held no such sanguine view, noting that the Germans themselves were paralyzed with cynicism, one of the uglier effects on morals of losing a major war.

And most generally and profoundly: "The very fact that knowledge is itself the basis for civilization points directly to openness as the way to overcome the present crisis.

In much of urban and Western civilization today, with no proper tragic sense of life, we try to believe that it is all upward and onward--and by ourselves. It works for so few, and it cannot serve us well in the long run--because it is not true. It is an inherently win-lose game, and more and more people find themselves on the losing side.