Civilisation Quotes - Page 3

• What is the use of this fuss about morality when the issue only involves a horse? The first and most difficult teaching of civilisation concerns man's behaviour to his inferiors. Make humanity gentle or reasonable toward animals, and strife or injustice between human beings would speedily terminate.

  Edward Mayhew

  Horse, Teaching, Animal

  Edward Mayhew (1864). “The Illustrated Horse Management: Containing Descriptive Remarks Upon Anatomy, Medicine, Shoeing, Teeth, Food, Vices, Stables : Likewise a Plain Account of the Situation, Nature and Value of the Various Points : Together with Comments on Grooms, Dealers, Breeders, Breakers and Trainers : Also, on Carriages and Harness”, p.10

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• It crosses my mind that our generation may leave problems that are simply too hard for human society in the generations that follow. The structures that separate civilisation from disorder are thin and fragile. (But) I am not gloomy by nature so don't presume that the global community will fail the young people.

  Ross Garnaut

  Our Generation, People, Community

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• It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilisation.

  Pope Pius X

  Christian, Order, Faithful

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• A stable climate is the most fundamental resource of all. No one has yet built a civilisation in an unstable climate

  Tom Burke

  Climate, Fundamentals, Resources

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• What is the difference between a 2°C world and a 4°C world? Human civilisation!

  Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

  Differences, World, Humans

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• We are embarking on the biggest project in human civilisation," he said. "We must ensure that the United States ... is part of such post-2012 arrangements.

  Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

  Climate, United States, Projects

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• The future of our civilisation depends upon the widening spread and deepening hold of the scientific habit of mind.

  John Dewey

  Future, Science, Mind

  John Dewey (1978). “The Middle Works, 1899-1924”, p.78, SIU Press

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• With every throb of the climatic pulse which we have felt in Central Asia,, the centre of civilisation has moved this way and that. Each throb has sent pain and decay to the lands whose day was done, life and vigour to those whose day was yet to be.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Life, Pain, Science

  Ellsworth Huntington (1907). “The Pulse of Asia: A Journey in Central Asia Illustrating the Geographical Basis of History”

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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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• It is an ideology born out of hatred and its adherents belong to no religion, culture or civilisation.

  Pratibha Patil

  Hatred, Culture, Terrorism

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• The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.

  Victor Hugo

  Jesus, Law, Doe

  Victor Hugo (1994). “Les Miserables Volume One”, p.126, Wordsworth Editions

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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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• As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off.

  David Mitchell

  Ethnicity, Long, Interesting

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• The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable.

  David Mamet

  Drama, Hero, Struggle

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• History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.

  Tony Judt

  Law, Progress, Behaviour

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• My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Views, Lunatic Asylums, Planets

  "God Is Not Great". Book by Christopher Hitchens, www.theguardian.com. 2011.

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• It seems like every year Hollywood makes an attempt to retell the Manson story, and I just couldn't be less interested in it. It's not really our crowning achievement as a civilisation. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it just bores me.

  John Hawkes

  Years, Achievement, Hollywood

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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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• Human beings have a need, generally, to destroy things. The Freudian principle of civilisation is correct. There's always, always a difference between the family image and the reality.

  Rachel Cusk

  Reality, Differences, Principles

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• The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.

  James Buchan

  Fall, Doubt, World

  "Market failures" by James Buchan, www.theguardian.com. May 2, 2008.

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• America is a great disappointment to me. As I said in one of my books, other societies create civilisations; we build shopping malls.

  Bill Bryson

  Disappointment, Book, Shopping

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