Civilized Nations Quotes

• A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.

  Herbert V. Prochnow

  Peace, War, Mars

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• Justice is the great interest of man on earth.

  Daniel Webster

  Men, Justice, Earth

  Oration on day of Justice Story's funeral, Boston, Mass., 12 Sept. 1845

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• Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pregnancy, Society, Church

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• Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Names, Giving, Want

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Sacrifice, Important, Citizenship

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1945). “Hegel's Philosophy of right”

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• Those who say [Joseph] Padilla should get a civilian trial are essentially saying that if you reject the rules of civilized nations, like those inscribed in the Geneva Convention, you therefore deserve to be treated better, not worse, than those rules require.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Trials, Should, Conventions

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• GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Angel, Science, Agency

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.102, University of Georgia Press

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• Since art is dead in the actual life of civilized nations, it has been relegated to these grotesque morgues, museums.

  Walter Gropius

  Art, Museums, Grotesque

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• During practically all of my public life, I have been a sincere advocate of an agreement between the leading nations of the world to set up all the necessary international machinery that would bring about a practical abolition of war between civilized nations.

  George W. Norris

  War, Agreement, World

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• GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Agency, Might, Gunpowder

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.102, University of Georgia Press

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• Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Air Power, Aviation, Crime

  Jeane Kirkpatrick's speech to the U.N. Security Council, www.upi.com. September 6, 1983.

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• I was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations.

  Jean Chretien

  Morning, Rights, People

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• As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.

  James Madison

  War, Justice, Humanity

  James Madison, Robert Allen Rutland (2008). “The Papers of James Madison: 8 February-24 October 1813”

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• [T]he most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views.

  James Madison

  Growing Up, Fall, Views

  The Federalist no. 10 (1788)

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• An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Artist, Self

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.466, Vintage

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• Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Names, Giving, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• The man who stands upon his own soil, who feels, by the laws of the land in which he lives,-by the laws of civilized nations,-he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, is, by the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome influence, not easily imbibed from any other source.

  Edward Everett

  Men, Law, Land

  Edward Everett (1839). “Selections from the Works of Edward Everett: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.62

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• The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.

  Naguib Mahfouz

  Law, Literature, Civilized

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• Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us.

  William Wilberforce

  Thinking, Views, Looks

  William Wilberforce (2005). “A Practical View of Preferred Christians”, p.26, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Judaism is not a passive religion, but an active life factor which has coalesced
  with the national consciousness into one organic whole. It is primarily the
  expression of a nationality whose history for thousands of years coincides with
  the history of the development of a humanity and the Jews are a nation which,
  having once acted as the leaven of the social world, is destined to be resurrected
  with the rest of civilized nations.

  Moses Hess

  Expression, Years, Humanity

  Moses Hess (1943). “The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem, the Last Nationalist Question”, p.49, U of Nebraska Press

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• Whatever happens in the country, whatever warfare harasses our land, we will never relinquish our hold on Western learning. As long as this school of ours stands, Japan remains a civilized nation of the world.

  Fukuzawa Yukichi

  Country, School, Land

  Yukichi Fukuzawa, Eiichi Kiyooka (1966). “The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa”, p.211, Columbia University Press

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• So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and that of their neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own.

  John Stuart Mill

  Country, Independent, Peculiar

  John Stuart Mill (2016). “Principles of Political Economy: Mill's Works”, p.251, VM eBooks

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• Of all the nations in the Western world, the United States, with the most money and the most time, has the fewest readers of books per capita. This is an incalculable loss. This, too, is one of the few civilized nations in the world which is unable to support a single magazine devoted solely to books.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Book, Reading, Loss

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• Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

  Alfred Nobel

  Military, War, Army

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• Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

  Daniel Webster

  Men, Justice, Together

  Daniel Webster, Edwin Percy Whipple (2001). “The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster”, p.533, Beard Books

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