Civilization Quotes - Page 38

• I think we overrate ourselves in terms of our abilities and capacities. I mean, just because you can build a really swell bridge doesn't, to my way of thinking, mean that you're an advanced civilization.

  George Carlin

  Mean, Thinking, Bridges

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• It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to that automatism of technological civilization and the industrial-consumer society, for they too are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in post-totalitarian societies.

  Vaclav Havel

  People, Democracy, Fundamentals

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.105, Routledge

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• I did have the resource of having taught Greek mythology and the history of Western civilization, and you can go back into the plays of Aeschylus and follow what happens when people seek revenge, and there are people plucking their eyes out. And Greek mythology is filled with all kinds of monsters and whatnot.

  Wes Craven

  Revenge, Eye, Play

  Interview with Scott Tobias, film.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

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• Our non-co-operation is with the system the English have established in India, with the material civilization and its attendant greed and exploitation of the weak.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Greed, India, Weak

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.116, A&C Black

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• A civilization based on nonviolence must be different from that organized for violence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Different, Violence, Organized

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• The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Essence, Giving, Morality

  Mahatma Gandhi (1959). “India of My Dreams”, p.17, Rajpal & Sons

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• Is a civilization worth the name, which requires, for its existence the very doubtful prop of a racial legislation and a lynch law?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Law, Names, Legislation

  Mahatma Gandhi (1968). “The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: Satyagraha in South Africa”

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• Modern civilization has taught us to convert night into day and golden silence into brazen din and noise.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Night, Taught Us, Silence

  Mahatma Gandhi (2011). “The Way to God: Selected Writings from Mahatma Gandhi”, p.54, North Atlantic Books

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• Further march of civilization seems to employ increasing domination of man over beast, together with a growingly humane method of using them.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Men, Together, March

  Mahatma Gandhi (1981). “Collected Works”

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• I want co-operation between nations for the salvaging of civilization, but co-operation presupposes free nations worthy of co-operation.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Want, Operations, Worthy

  Mahatma Gandhi, Judith M. Brown (2008). “The Essential Writings”, p.154, Oxford University Press

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• I simply don't like the culture of drugs. I never liked the hippies for it. I think it was a mistake to be all the time stoned and on weed. It didn't look right and it doesn't look right today either and the damage drugs have done to civilizations are too enormous. And besides, I don't need any drug to step out of myself. I don't want them and I do not need them.

  Werner Herzog

  Weed, Mistake, Hippie

  "Werner Herzog on His Unique Career, Clowns, and Getting Punk’d by Mel Brooks". Interview with Steve Marsh, www.vulture.com. August 3, 2014.

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• New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you.

  David Letterman

  Funny, New York, Fall

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• Marriage is under attack from so many different areas. There should be benefits associated with married people. Life is unfair. Maybe you won't find the right person and you won't end up getting married. Oh, well, life is unfair. But married people, because of their capacity to have children, even if they're not going to end up having children, even if they're unable to bear children, marriage is an institution that is absolutely central to civilization.

  Ann Coulter

  Children, People, Different

  "The Situation" with Tucker Carlson, www.nbcnews.com. June 6, 2006.

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• Hunger eats civilization. The West is not hungry; that's why they can say they're so civilized. Civilization is the biggest bluff!

  Marjane Satrapi

  West, Hunger, Hungry

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Don't get me wrong, God Bless the farmers and cowboys. It just wasn't the life I wanted. When writing stories of other lands, I can describe people and places from actual experience. And for someone with an imagination like me, I could see dinosaurs and lost civilizations in the jungle of Vietnam.

  Tom Johnson

  Writing, Cowboy, Land

  Source: ravenswoodpublishing.blogspot.com

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• I do not think there is such a thing as a "clash of civilizations." When I say that Muslims as Muslims cannot be represented in the West, I was being ironic, and also referring to the fact that ninety percent of the time when people talk about "the problem of Muslims" in the West, it is to complain about the fact that Muslims have not "integrated."

  Talal Asad

  Thinking, People, Ironic

  "Do Muslims Belong in the West? An Interview with Talal Asad". Interview with Hasan Azad, www.jadaliyya.com. February 3, 2015.

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• Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization.

  Ibn Warraq

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Liberty, Western

  Ibn Warraq (2013). “Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy”, p.15, Encounter Books

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• It is the West that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians, recognizing and defending their rights. The notions of freedom and human rights were present at the dawn of Western civilization, as ideals at least, but have gradually come to fruition through supreme acts of self-criticism.

  Ibn Warraq

  Religious, Gay, Rights

  Source: counterjihadreport.com

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• Each time you admire the façade of the New York Public Library, you are paying homage to Western civilization.

  Ibn Warraq

  New York, Library, Admire

  Ibn Warraq (2013). “Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy”, p.13, Encounter Books

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• By working and living in New York, you are breathing Western civilization, continuously reminded of its benefits and its values.

  Ibn Warraq

  New York, Breathing, Benefits

  Ibn Warraq (2013). “Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy”, p.13, Encounter Books

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• I think we have powerful role-models among us in the American West. Certainly the Hopis, a timeless civilization that understands sustainability and what that means about living in harmony, in tandem with the natural world. We have much to learn from them, and they will survive us, I feel certain about that.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Powerful, Mean, Thinking

  Terry Tempest Williams (2006). “A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams”, Utah State Univ Pr

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• In a country of such recent civilization as ours, whose almost limitless treasures of material wealth invite the risks of capital and the industry of labor, it is but natural that material interests should absorb the attention of the people to a degree elsewhere unknown.

  Alfred Adler

  Country, People, Risk

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• We had our own civilization in Africa before we were captured and carried off to this land. We smelted iron, danced, made music and folk poems; we sculpted, worked in glass, spun cotton and wool, wove baskets and cloth. We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite. We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.

  Richard Wright

  Iron, Ivory, Medicine

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• A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.

  Adlai Stevenson I

  Party, Men, Principles

  "Speeches of Adlai Stevenson" by Adlai Ewing Stevenson, (p. 17), 1952.

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• What man calls civilization always results in deserts.

  Don Marquis

  Men, Desert, Results

  Don Marquis (1935). “Archy does his part”

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