Barbarians Quotes - Page 2

• Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Civilization, People, Corruption

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures.

  Walter Lippmann

  Stress, Men, Temptation

  Walter Lippmann (1959). “The Public Philosophy”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

  Matthew Arnold

  America, Justice, Our Society

  Culture and Anarchy preface (1869)

  77 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

  Thomas Sowell

  Civilization, Generations, Too Late

  Thomas Sowell (2007). “A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles”, p.108, Hachette UK

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Here in Canada, in the Western world, we are inside the walls. Outside the walls are the barbarians.

  Barbara Amiel

  Wall, World, Canada

  8 Copy quote

• I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Loss, Thinking, Pressure

  4 Copy quote

• The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Class, Century, Middle

  8 Copy quote

• If there were a clear prospect that such evils were part of a barbarian past, then at least we might find a small crumb of comfort. No such prospect exists: no scientific analysis can even remotely answer or account for past and present horrors of human behaviour.

  Simon Conway Morris

  Past, Perspective, Evil

  "The Crucible of Creation". Book by Simon Conway Morris, 1998.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money

  Samuel Gompers

  Children, Race, Economic Inequality

  Samuel Gompers, Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, Marla J. Hughes, Mary C. Jeske (1991). “The Samuel Gompers Papers: A national labor movement takes shape, 1895-98”, p.48, University of Illinois Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you go back to the Conan the Barbarian series, I really liked that.

  Andre Braugher

  Conan, Series, Ifs

  9 Copy quote

• The goal, I submit, is obvious: subjugating the world (which is barbarian, dangerous, envious and ungrateful) to US power for the sake of America's interests.

  Breyten Breytenbach

  America, Goal, Ungrateful

  8 Copy quote

• As a result, I've been portrayed as a cynical barbarian preying on the very clients I was charged to defend.

  Jack Abramoff

  Cynical, Clients, Results

  "Jack in a Box". Zagorin, A., content.time.com. April 30, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• No greater glory can be handed down than to conquer the barbarian, to recall the savage and the pagan to civility, to draw the ignorant within the orbit of reason, and to fill with reverence for divinity the godless and the ungodly.

  Richard Hakluyt

  History, Ignorant, Divinity

  Richard Hakluyt (1935). “The Original Writings & Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  People, Age, Facts

  Theodore Roosevelt (2004). “Letters and Speeches”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you look back in history, as the barbarians were invading the gates of Rome, people were consulting fortunetellers and worrying about the end of the world and all sorts of other apocalyptic notions. When the tsars were finally overthrown, they were all reading tarot cards even as the revolutionaries were banging at the gates.

  Matt Taibbi

  Reading, Rome, People

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. July 11, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Failure, Precious Stones

  13 Copy quote

• Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok?

  Thomas Sowell

  Running, Common Decency, Campus

  14 Copy quote

• Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Order, Evil

  Arthur Koestler (1969). “The Act of Creation”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

  Mark Twain

  Civilization, Human Nature, Hiding

  Mark Twain (1972). “Everyone's Mark Twain”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The noble caste was in the beginning always the barbarian caste: their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, but primarily in their psychical - they were more complete human beings.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Noble, Physical Strength, Castes

  8 Copy quote

• A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.

  Jack Vance

  Jack Vance (1957). “Big Planet”, p.21, Spatterlight Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Civilized people are taught by logic, barbarians, by necessity, communities by tradition; and the lesson inculcated even in wild beasts by nature itself. They learn that they have to defend their own bodies and persons lives from violence of any and every kind by all means within their power.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Mean, People, Community

  4 Copy quote

• It is the decisive people who have become civilised; it is the indecisive, otherwise called the higher sceptics, or the idealistic doubters, who have remained barbarians.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  People, Doubters, Indecisive

  52 Copy quote

• There is no god, there is no god, there is no god at all. He who invented god is a fool. He who propagates god is a scoundrel. He who worships god is a barbarian.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Fool, Worship, Scoundrels

  384 Copy quote

• There are three attributes for which I am grateful to Fortune: that I was born, first, human and not animal; second, man and not woman; and third, Greek and not barbarian.

  Thales

  Grateful, Animal, Men

  68 Copy quote