Civilisation Quotes - Page 8

• If we ever talk to aliens, their civilisation will be far more advanced than ours (because of distances involved). They won't be religious!

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Distance, Aliens

  Richard Dawkins‏ @RichardDawkins, twitter.com. February 17, 2014.

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• Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom?

  Herman Melville

  Moon, Missionary, Pagan

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.4907, Delphi Classics

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• What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.

  Matthew Arnold

  Two, Interesting, Elements

  Matthew Arnold (2007). “Civilization in the United States”, p.190, Applewood Books

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• I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government--but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Government, Safety, Intellectual

  H. P. Lovecraft (2010). “Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft”, p.105, Lulu.com

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• I am one of those who believe that there is no permanent home for even a section of the Bantu in the white area of South Africa and the destiny of South Africa depends on this essential point. If the principle of permanent residence for the black man in the area of the white is accepted then it is the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it in this country.

  P. W. Botha

  Country, Believe, Home

  The Guardian, February 7, 2006.

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• The central industry of modern civilisation, tending, because of its control over materials, to spread into and ultimately incorporate older industries such as mining, smelting, oil- refining, textiles, rubber, building, and even agriculture in respect to fertilizers and food processing.

  John Desmond Bernal

  Oil, Agriculture, Textiles

  John Desmond Bernal (1965). “Science in history”

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• The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West. The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.

  Aga Khan IV

  Real, Ignorance, Two

  Speech at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, www.akdn.org. October 17, 2007.

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• There is a steady check in an old civilisation upon the fertility of the abler classes: the improvident and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high civilisation.

  Francis Galton

  Race, Class, Generations

  "Hereditary Genius". Book by Francis Galton, p. 414, 1869.

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• Generally speaking, an Indian university must regard itself as one of the living organs of national reconstruction. It must discover the best means of blending together both the spiritual and the material aspects of life. It must equip its alumni irrespective of caste, creed or sex, with individual fitness, not for its own sake, not for merely adorning varied occupations and professions, but in order to teach them how to merge their individuality in the common cause of advancing the progress and prosperity of their motherland and upholding the highest traditions of human civilisation.

  Syama Prasad Mukherjee

  Spiritual, Sex, Mean

  Speech delivered at Nagpur University Convocation on 5th December 1936, "Educational Speeches" by Dr. Shyamaprasad Mookerjee, A.Mukherjee & Co. (Private) Ltd., 2 College Square, Kolkata 700 012, 1959.

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• For neo-conservatism is a quintessentially Jewish project: a re-sanctification in everyday life of the core values of western civilisation, and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice. The neo-cons' crucial insight is that public signals through law, custom and tradition are the key to getting people to behave well. And that is a Jewish insight.

  Melanie Phillips

  Keys, Law, Practice

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• There can be little doubt that in many ways the story of bridge building is the story of civilisation. By it we can readily measure an important part of a people's progress.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Bridges, People, Doubt

  "Kurilpa Bridge". Book by Haig Beck, p. 72, 2012.

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• All history shows that, in exact proportion as nations advance in civilisation, the accounts of miracles taking place among them become rarer and rarer, until at last they entirely cease.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Miracle, Atheism, Lasts

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.158

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• Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation.

  Florence Nightingale

  Passion, Atmosphere, Would Be

  Florence Nightingale (2017). “Cassandra and Suggestions for Thought by Florence Nightingale”, p.184, Routledge

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• It used to be said that you had to know what was happening in America because it gave us a glimpse of our future. Today, the rest of America, and after that Europe, had better heed what happens in California, for it already reveals the type of civilisation that is in store for all of us.

  Alistair Cooke

  Europe, California, America

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• You cannot have both truth and what you call civilisation.

  Iris Murdoch

  Truth

  Iris Murdoch (1976). “A Severed Head”, p.52, Penguin

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• one feels guilty on behalf of Western civilisation. What damage are we doing, blindly and swiftly, to those races who are being taught that because we are materially richer we must be emulated without question? What compels us to infect everyone else with our own sick urgency to change, soften and standardise? How can we have the effrontery to lord it over peoples who retain what we have lost - a sane awareness that what matters most is immeasurable?

  Dervla Murphy

  What Matters, Race, Sick

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• People with really weak characters cause an immense amount of suffering in the world. They destroy whole civilisations.

  Bessie Head

  Character, People, Suffering

  Bessie Head, Randolph Vigne (1991). “A gesture of belonging: letters from Bessie Head, 1965-1979”, Heinemann

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• This is by far the most serious crisis civilisation has ever faced.

  Al Gore

  Serious, Climate Change, Crisis

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• Among all the many great transitions that have marked the evolution of Western civilisation ... there has been only one-the triumph of Christianity -that can be called in the fullest sense a "revolution": a truly massive and epochal revision of humanity's prevailing vision of reality, so pervasive in its influence and so vast in its consequences as to actually have created a new conception of the world, of history, of human nature, of time, and of the moral good.

  David Bentley Hart

  Reality, Humanity, Vision

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• Unless legal and illegal immigration is halted and reversed, European First World nations across all of Europe from Spain to Russia, North America, Australia and New Zealand - will be destroyed and have their very culture and civilisation changed to that of the Third World. Immigration is now the single most important issue facing all First World nations, and will determine whether Western Civilisation continues to exist or not.

  Arthur Kemp

  Russia, Europe, America

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• Moral improvement (or perfecting) require an evolution leading to a higher consciousness, which is the true torch of life; it is what we have failed too much to appreciate, and that which would be fatal to fail to appreciate any longer ("pluslongtemps", Fr.); For if we do not take it upon ourselves to remedy in time to the moral colapse (or bankruptcy) that already threaten, the whole civilisation will risks to disappear.

  African Spir

  Appreciate, Risk, Too Much

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 60), 1937.

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• If the present civilisation does not acquire some stable moral fondations ("bases morales stables", Fr.), its existence will hardly be more assured than that of the civilisations that have preceeded it, and which have fallen (or collapse, or failed).

  African Spir

  Doe, Moral, Existence

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 41), 1937.

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• We stand then for freedom, because we claim the right to develop our own individuality and evolve our own destiny along our own lines, unembarrassed by what Western civilisation has to teach us and unhampered by the institutions which the West has imposed.

  Chittaranjan Das

  Destiny, Individuality, Lines

  "Deshabandhu Chitta Ranjan: brief survey of life and work, provincial conference speeches, Congress speeches". Book by Chitta Ranjan Das, Rajen Sen, B.K. Sen, "Undelivered presidential address for the session of Indian Congress held at Ahmedabad in December 1921", 1926.

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• Civilisation makes us all as alike as peas in a pod, and it is the very uncouth - uncivilised, if you will - element which individualises nations.

  Alec-Tweedie

  Peas In A Pod, Elements, Uncouth

  Ethel Alec-Tweedie, Mrs Alec-Tweedie (1904). “Sunny Sicily: Its Rustics and Its Ruins”

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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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