Civilisation Quotes - Page 9

• Paris is certainly one of the most boastful of cities, and you could argue that it has had a lot to boast about: at various times the European centre of power, of civilisation, of the arts, and (self-advertisingly, at least) of love.

  Julian Barnes

  Art, Self, Cities

  "A vineyard in Montmartre: just one of the hidden pleasures of Paris" by Julian Barnes, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2011.

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• I have heard earnest American sociologists say that American children have a right to the divorce experience as an enriching element of an advanced civilisation.

  Anthony Burgess

  Children, Divorce, Elements

  Anthony Burgess (1990). “You've had your time: being the second part of the confessions of Anthony Burgess”, Heinemann Educational Books

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• Civilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Skating On Thin Ice, World, Flu

  "Modern lover". www.theguardian.com. November 12, 2005.

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• The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction.

  Paul Keating

  Passion, Belief, Process

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• During the civilisation and development process of more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation has made an indelible contribution to the civilisation and advancement of mankind.

  Xi Jinping

  Years, Chinese, Advancement

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• Jesus is absolutely at the centre of Western civilisation and part of my fascination with him is, why? What is it about this particular man and his story?

  Simon Callow

  Jesus, Men, Fascination

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• The World's Fair was the precursor to theme parks like Disneyworld, and the really sort of cheap, superficial promotional architecture that you see everywhere in the US. I think there's a danger when you start creating a civilisation that isn't meant to last.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Thinking, Creating, World

  "State trouper". Interview with Lynsey Hanley, www.theguardian.com. November 20, 2005.

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• The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole.

  Arnold J. Toynbee

  Freedom, Power, Political

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• Knowledge has always been important, of course. The ancient Egyptians did not raise the stones for the pyramids relying on the incantations of their gods. The waters in the irrigation canals of the great Indus Civilisation did not flow according to the laws of ignorance. Knowledge has always been power and wealth.

  Mahathir Mohamad

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Law

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• The strength that comes from human collaboration is the central truth behind civilisation's success and the primary reason why cities existwe must free ourselves from our tendency to see cities as their buildings, and remember that the real city is made of flesh, not concrete.

  Edward Glaeser

  Real, Cities, Collaboration

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• Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Paris, Fountain, Fountain Head

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2469, Manonmani Publishers

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• On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Cities, Perfect

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• If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm... If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

  James Hansen

  Humanity, Wish, Environmental

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• Civilisation has, indeed, become a slaughtering-car crowned by a grinning effigy of Comfort, before which man blindly and voluntarily hurls himself in his own ignorance.

  Eugen Sandow

  Ignorance, Men, Car

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• Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It's central, in fact, to civilisation.

  Roy Baumeister

  Running, Animal, Discipline

  "Why willpower matters – and how to get it" by Jon Henley, www.theguardian.com. February 7, 2012.

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• The collapse of the world's banking system and the impending disaster of accelerating climate change are not separate phenomena. They are simply the most visible symptoms of a particular model of capitalism that will bring civilisation to its knees. But those symptoms will not get sorted unless and until we commit to a radical transformation of the way we create and distribute wealth in the world today

  Jonathon Porritt

  Climate, Banking, World

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• The razor-sharp line of division that exists between political ideologies in our own country in the United States, I think it's clear that these movements are forming - and one is more forward thinking and more embracing and more inclusive. The other is less tolerant and more judgemental and more fear-driven and fear-based. I think, you know, over the next generation, we're going to see which way we turn as a civilisation.

  Zachary Quinto

  Country, Thinking, Political

  Source: www.denofgeek.com

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• Western civilisation, the élitists all understood, is built upon discrimination: a culture that does not rest on discrimination, that penalises people who discriminate, or rewards the undiscriminating, is worth very little and has only callow, childish pleasures.

  Richard Davenport-Hines

  People, Doe, Culture

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• The real cause of the great upheavals which precede changes of civilisations, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Arabian Empire, is a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples .... The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought .... The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Real, Fall, Memorable

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• The goal of education should be to dismantle the Middle Pole view, not to reinforce it in the name of the need for a grounding in one's own civilisation.

  Jay L. Garfield

  Views, Names, Goal

  "Buddhist howls". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. December 28, 2012.

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• Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilisation. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organisation disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present.

  Carl Jung

  Spiritual, Impact, People

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• We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilisation.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Race, Purpose, Littles

  "Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Volume 4, 2007.

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• We don't know the spiritual advancements long-term veganism - over generations - would have for human life. It would be certainly a different civilisation, and the first one in the whole of our history that would truly deserve the title of being a civilisation.

  Donald Watson

  Spiritual, Long, Titles

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• In the forests of central India and in many, many rural areas, a huge battle is being waged. Millions of people are being driven off their lands by mining companies, by dams, by infrastructure companies, and a huge battle is being waged. These are not people who have been co-opted into consumer culture, into the western notions of civilisation and progress. They are fighting for their lands and their livelihoods, refusing to be looted so that someone somewhere far away may "progress" at their cost.

  Arundhati Roy

  Fighting, Land, People

  "Arundhati Roy: 'The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution'". Interview with Arun Gupta, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2011.

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• Marriage: This terrible insoluble problem of civilisation, which created all the evil. This unnatural state of union in disunion which exacted impossibilities and forced together elements absolutely and inherently antagonistic to each other!

  Rosa Campbell Praed

  Evil, Together, Elements

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