Civilisation Quotes - Page 6

• There are messages about civilisations and we are trying to be true to history as much as possible. We wanted all this to gel with some good theory about why these civilisations went down, why they weakened and crumbled. Because they did, they vanished.

  Mel Gibson

  Trying, Messages, Theory

  "Apocalypto - Mel Gibson interview". Interview with Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity's powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction.

  David Mitchell

  War, Mean, Humanity

  David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.443, Random House Group

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• We have written the evidence of our existence onto the surface of our planet. Our civilisation has become a beacon, that identifies our planet as home to life.

  Brian Cox

  Home, Surface, Beacons

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• Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies - in fact the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship coming up the river. Looked at today in the British Museum, it is a powerful work of art; but to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut, it would have seemed less agreeable - as menacing to her civilisation as the periscope of a nuclear submarine.

  Kenneth Clark

  Mother, Art, Powerful

  "Civilisation" by Kenneth Clark, (Ch. 1), 1969.

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• We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

  Voltaire

  Scotland, Ideas, Looks

  Voltaire (1976). “Candide”, p.119, Lulu.com

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• The Hindu civilisation is a diabolical contrivance to enslave humanity. Its proper name would be infamy.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Names, Humanity, Would Be

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• The real debate about both the horrific inequality in the world and about the terrorism and frightening instability in the world requires analysis of the differences in upset-adaption or alienation-from-soul between individuals, races, genders, generations, countries, civilisations and cultures, but until the human condition could be explained and the upset state of the human condition compassionately understood and thus defended that debate could not take place.

  Jeremy Griffith

  Country, Real, Differences

  Jeremy Griffith (2016). “Freedom: The End of the Human Condition”, p.638, WTM Publishing and Communications

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• Civilisation cannot survive if it rests on a propertyless proletariat.

  Ernest Bevin

  Proletariat, Property, Ifs

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• We've been taught that the renaissance was one of the great golden ages of civilisation. The renaissance was not a golden age, it was the end of a golden age.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Age, Renaissance, Golden

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• Civilisation and profits go hand in hand.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Hands, Profit, Hand In Hand

  Speech in New York, 27 November 1920, in 'New York Times' 28 November 1920, p. 20

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• To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Needs, Avoidance

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.6, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Curiosity is the engine of civilisation

  Peter Cundill

  Curiosity, Engines

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• The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Passion, Men, Littles

  "Daedalus or Science and the Future". An address, February 4, 1923.

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• When one is the agent of order and civilisation in the universe, one doesn't stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans.

  Ann Leckie

  Order, Agents, Stoops

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• What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens?

  Ann Leckie

  Citizens, Well Being, Wells

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• All great civilisations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.

  Kenneth Clark

  Peace, War, Stage

  1969 Civilisation, ch.1.

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• People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.

  Kenneth Clark

  Boredom, Long, People

  Kenneth Clark (2015). “Civilisation”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• At every stage of understanding the universe better, the benefits to civilisation have been immeasurable. None of those big leaps were made with us knowing what was going to happen.

  Brian Cox

  Knowing, Understanding, Benefits

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• Civilisation is hooped together, brought
  Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
  By manifold illusion.

  William Butler Yeats

  Civilization, Together, Uprooting

  William Butler Yeats (2011). “The Yeats Reader, Revised Edition: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama, and Prose”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• The slow rhythm of the body, the insistent rhythm of the wit, were they becoming irreconcilable in modern civilisation? The sedentary life, frustration and irritability; work with the body, fatigue - and peace of mind.

  Henry Williamson

  Frustration, Mind, Becoming

  Henry Williamson (1963). “The Power of the Dead”

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• The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the well-being of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Educational, People, Leaving

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• It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.

  Alain Ducasse

  Challenges, Intellectual, Sensual

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• The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilisation.

  Julian Assange

  Internet, Penetration, Best Things

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• In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do.

  Roy Harper

  Abuse, Way, Rooms

  "Roy Harper: 'I fought like hell to stay alive'". Interview with Alexis Petridis, www.theguardian.com. October 13, 2011.

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• Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.

  Edward Gibbon

  Sex, Passion, Love Is

  Edward Gibbon (1998). “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.191, Wordsworth Editions

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