Barbarians Quotes

• Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a terrible effort to remain a civilized man.

  Leonard Woolf

  Character, Men, Effort

  Leonard Woolf (1939). “Barbarians Within and Without”

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• War is the business of barbarians.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Peace, War, Anti War

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• What shall become of us without any barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.

  C.P. Cavafy

  Kindness, People, Solutions

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• I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Knowledge, Too Much, Recovering

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

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• If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

  Thomas Sowell

  Winning, Civilization, Battle

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.328, Hoover Press

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• Anyone can admire creation. Only a barbarian sees the beauty in demolition.

  Kamahl

  Creation, Demolition, Admire

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• Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love - all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce.

  Plato

  Powerful, Philosophy, Gay

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• The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Race, Law, Civilization

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• The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.

  William Hazlitt

  Thinking, Prejudice, Taste

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.119

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• One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Night, Cities, Pyramids

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

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• People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.

  George Lucas

  Art, Real, Inspiration

  "George Lucas offers a compelling argument against George Lucas" by Sean O'Neal, news.avclub.com. September 1, 2011.

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• Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Religious, Thought Provoking, Curiosity

  Isaiah Berlin (2013). “The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas”, p.2, Princeton University Press

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• But there is a devil of a difference between barbarians who are fit by nature to be used for anything, and civilized people who apply them selves to everything.

  Karl Marx

  Self, Differences, People

  Karl Marx (1973). “Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy”, Vintage Books USA

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• We are standing face to face with the barbarians. The enemy is no longer outside but inside the City, and the ruling ideology, paralysed, is incapable of spotting him. It stammers, overcome by its own moral disarmament, and is giving up: this is the time to seize the reins. Present society is an accomplice to the evil that is devouring it.

  Guillaume Faye

  Giving Up, Cities, Evil

  Guillaume Faye, Michael O'Meara (2010). “Archeofuturism”, p.18, Arktos

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• Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Hunting, Sea, Farming

  July 17, 1971 interview quoted in "Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating", book by Gail Hudson, Gary McAvoy, and Jane Goodall, 2005.

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• It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.

  Garrison Keillor

  Air, Luxury, Empires

  "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations". Book by James B. Simpson, p. 211, 1988.

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• If the Barbarians are destroyed, who will we then be able to blame for the bad things?

  Angela Carter

  Able, Blame, Ifs

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• Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized.

  William Ralph Inge

  Gambling, Disease, Civilized

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• Of course the barbarians' aim of world domination has not escaped the attention of the Europeans, perhaps because unlike us they are closer to the walls.

  Barbara Amiel

  Wall, World, Attention

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• The barbarians come out at night.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Night

  Waiting for the Barbarians ch. 5 (1981)

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• Wine's terrible for babies." Dorian swept into the sitting room to join me, elegantly arranging himself on a love seat that displayed his purple velvet robes to best effect. "Well of course it is. I'd never dream of giving wine to an infant! What do you take me for, a barbarian? But for you... well, it might go a long way to make you a little less jumpy. You've been positively unbearable to live around. "I can't have it either. It affects the babies in utero.

  Richelle Mead

  Dream, Baby, Wine

  Richelle Mead (2011). “Shadow Heir”, p.16, Kensington Publishing Corp.

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• What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today.

  C.P. Cavafy

  Waiting, Today, Forums

  Constantine P. Cavafy, “Waiting For The Barbarians”

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• Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

  Robert E. Howard

  Live Life, Men, Civilization

  Robert E. Howard (2007). “The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands”, p.31, Del Rey

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• Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

  John Stuart Mill

  Government, Improvement, Ends

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.13, Cambridge University Press

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• Barbarians always think of themselves as the bringers of civilization.

  Pierre Schaeffer

  Thinking, Civilization

  "Pierre Schaeffer: an Interview with the Pioneer of Musique Concrete". Records Quarterly magazine, vol. 2, n° 1, 1987.

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