Civilisation Quotes - Page 2

• Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Race, Religion, Emigration

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• The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.

  Nikola Tesla

  Fire, Flames, May

  Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.564, Simon and Schuster

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• It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has served primitive races since men first went to sea.

  John Millington Synge

  Moving, Men, Race

  John Millington Synge (1999). “The Aran Islands”, p.14, Northwestern University Press

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• Diaspora starts about a thousand years from now. Most of human civilisation has moved inside computers; essentially, a major branch of our descendants consists of conscious software.

  Greg Egan

  Years, Branches, Diaspora

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• I believe that there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed.

  Frederick Soddy

  Believe, Past, Energy

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• Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.

  Frank Herbert

  Children, Teaching, Law

  Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.330, Penguin

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• We did not realise how fragile our civilisation was.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  History, Realising, Fragile

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• There exists in the world today, and has existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might be termed, an Order of the Quest. It is composed of those whose intellectual and spiritual perceptions have revealed to them that civilisation has a secret Destiny... The outcome of this 'secret destiny' is a World Order ruled by a king with supernatural powers[the antichrist]. This king was descended of a divine race; that is, he belonged to the Order of the Illumined; for those who come to a state of wisdom then belong to a family of heroes-perfected human beings.

  Manly Hall

  Spiritual, Kings, Hero

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• And ... and what is civilisation if it isn't people talking to each other over a goddamned beer?

  James S.A. Corey

  Beer, Talking, People

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• The culture-heroes of our liberal bourgeois civilisation are ant-liberal and ant-bourgeois . . .

  Susan Sontag

  Hero, Culture, Ants

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• Modern war and modern civilisation are utterly incompatible...one or the other must go.

  Vera Brittain

  War, Modern, Anti War

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• Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Light, Years, Looks

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Telling”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We must recognise the essential underlaying savagery in the animal called man, and return to older and sounder principles of national life and defense. We must realise that man's nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilisation is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Sleep, Animal, Men

  H. P. Lovecraft (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated)”, p.1685, Delphi Classics

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• Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.

  Winston Churchill

  Peace, Together, Majority

  Winston Churchill (1966). “Churchill in His Own Words: Years of Greatness, Memorable Speeches of the Man of the Century”

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• For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Travel, Moving, Memorable

  Travels with a Donkey "Cheylard and Luc" (1879)

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• Roving dogs do not indicate the civilisation or compassion of the society. They betray on the country the ignorance and lethargy of its members.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Country, Dog, Ignorance

  Mahatma Gandhi (1927). “Young India, 1924-1926”

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• No civilisation can grow unless fanatics, bloodshed, and brutality stop. No civilisation can begin to lift up its head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards that much-needed charity is to look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas and convictions may be.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Religious, Ideas, Different

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1111, Manonmani Publishers

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• My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilisation. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Race, Views, Two

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.214, Psychology Press

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• Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.

  Annie Besant

  Simple, Men, Evolution

  Annie Besant (2012). “The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant”, p.744, Jazzybee Verlag

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• We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we too would become Taliban.

  Umberto Eco

  Christian, Country, Missionary

  "The roots of conflict" by Umberto Eco, www.theguardian.com. October 13, 2001.

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• So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice.

  Arundhati Roy

  People, Justice, Damage

  "The algebra of infinite justice" by Arundhati Roy, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2001.

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• What we require is not a formal return to tradition and religion, but a rereading, a reinterpretation, of our history that can illuminate the present and pave the way to a better future. For example, if we delve more deeply into ancient Egyptian and African civilisations we will discover the humanistic elements that were prevalent in many areas of life. Women enjoyed a high status and rights, which they later lost when class patriarchal society became the prevalent social system.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Class, Rights, Way

  Nawal El Saadawi (1997). “The Nawal El Saadawi Reader”, Zed Books

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• Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things.

  Muhammad Yunus

  Goodbye, Moon, Technology

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• The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

  Elon Musk

  Moving, Track, Lessons

  "Elon Musk's mission to Mars". Interview with Rory Carroll, www.theguardian.com. July 17, 2013.

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• I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation.

  Rupert Murdoch

  Mother, Children, Father

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