Civilization Quotes - Page 2

• Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

  Sigmund Freud

  Peace, War, Rocks

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• There is a strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheelhorses necessary to a stable civilization, but history, even current history in the newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits willing to do battle for new ideas.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Strong, Reading, Moving

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• the present Western civilization ... is dominated by the extravert viewpoint. There are plenty of reasons for this domination: extraverts are more vocal than introverts; they are more numerous, apparently in the ratio of three to one; and they are accessible and understandable, whereas the introverts are not readily understandable, even to each other, and are likely to be thoroughly incomprehensible to the extraverts.

  Isabel Briggs Myers

  Three, Viewpoints, Ratios

  Isabel Briggs Myers, Peter B. Myers (1995). “Gifts differing: understanding personality type”, Davies-Black Publishing

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• The union of men in large masses is indispensable to the development and rapid growth of the higher faculties of men. Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization whence light and heat radiated out into the dark cold world.

  Theodore Parker

  Dark, Men, Cities

  Theodore Parker “The Works of Theodore Parker: Lessons from the world of matter and the world of man”

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• Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.

  Will Durant

  Order, Liberty, Chaos

  "The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers". Book by Will Durant, 1926.

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• Europe has lived on its contradictions, flourished on its differences, and, constantly transcending itself thereby, has created a civilization on which the whole world depends even when rejecting it. This is why I do not believe in a Europe unified under the weight of an ideology or of a technocracy that overlooked these differences.

  Albert Camus

  Believe, Europe, Differences

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.243, Vintage

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• Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.

  Simone Weil

  Opportunity, Firsts, Colonialism

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• Because our civilization is woven of so many diverse strands, the ideas which any one group accepts will be found to contain numerous contradictions.

  Margaret Mead

  Ideas, Groups, Woven

  Margaret Mead (1973). “Coming of Age in Samoa”

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• It is dangerous it seems to me for a civilization when there is a complete abyss betewen people in general and the artists. Or is it always so? The poets who are most ardently on the people's side write in such a way that the people cannot see rhyme nor reason to their work.

  May Sarton

  Writing, Artist, People

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• The whole of our civilization is founded on specialization, which implies the enslavement of those who execute to those who coordinate.

  Simone Weil

  Bureaucracy, Specialization, Whole

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• The glossy surface of our civilization hides a real intellectual decadence.

  Simone Weil

  Real, Intellectual, Morality

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.156, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• A trial cannot be conducted by announcing the general culpability of a civilization. Only the actual deeds which, at least, stank in the nostrils of the entire world were brought to judgment.

  Albert Camus

  Deeds, Trials, World

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.181, Vintage

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• A modern and humane civilization must control conception or sink into barbaric cruelty to individuals.

  Marie Stopes

  Birth Control, Modern, Individual

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• Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term 'we' or 'us' and at the same time decreases those labeled 'you' or 'them' until that category has no one left in it.

  Howie Winter

  Numbers, People, Growth

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• There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  War, Political, Inheritance

  Reinhold Niebuhr (1967). “Love and justice: selections from the shorter writings of Reinhold Niebuhr”

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• A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

  Emile M. Cioran

  God, Destroyed

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• If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Relationship, Peace, Money

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1950). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1944-1945, Volume 13”, p.615, Best Books on

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• Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.

  Vince Lombardi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

  "Full Text of Governor Ikpeazu’s Inaugural Speech". dailypost.ng. May 30, 2015.

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• We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

  Will Rogers

  Inspirational, Rights

  Will Rogers, Steven K. Gragert, Judy G. Buckholz, Oklahoma State University, Will Rogers Memorial Commission (1974). “The Writings of Will Rogers”

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• The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw: put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Two, Savages, Noses

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• Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Poverty, Danger, Chiefs

  George Bernard Shaw (2012). “Major Barbara”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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• To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

  George Orwell

  War, Cities, Doubt

  1945 In the Observer, 8 Apr.

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• Human civilization is not something achieved against nature; it is rather the outcome of the working of the innate qualities of man.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Quality, Outcomes

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• Tolerance is held to be a condition of mind which is encouraged by, and is necessary for, civilization.

  Arthur Keith

  Tolerance, Mind, Conditions

  Sir Arthur Keith (1947). “Evolution and Ethics”

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• Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

  Cyril Connolly

  Small Numbers, People, Needs

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