Civilization Quotes - Page 12

• Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.

  Wallace Stevens

  Saint, Crumbs, Complaints

  Wallace Stevens (1964). “the Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”

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• Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this.

  Sigmund Freud

  Race, Unity, Purpose

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Laughter, Wine, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.253, Penguin

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• If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

  Harriet Martineau

  Power, Half, Tests

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.156

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• The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Acceptance, Math, Night

  Jean Baudrillard, Francesco Proto, Keith Broadfoot (2006). “Mass Identity Architecture: Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard”, Academy Press

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• Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.

  Brian Aldiss

  Distance, Men, Distance Relationship

  "The Dark Light Years". Book by Brian Aldiss, 1964.

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• One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  People, Presidential, Criminals

  "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes". Book by Rutherford B. Hayes, 1922 - 1926.

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• The sum of the whole matter is this - our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Survival, Matter, Redeemed

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link (1993). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Relaxation, Levels

  Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 14

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• There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.

  Mark Twain

  Levels, Salvation, Lifts

  Mark Twain (1994). “Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches”, p.262, Penguin

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• Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Men, Progress Of Society

  The Fountainhead pt. 4, ch. 18 (1943)

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• Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.

  Victor Hugo

  Peace, War, Virtue

  Victor Hugo (1883). “Oration on Voltaire”

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• A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.

  Tahar Ben Jelloun

  Modern, Accepted, Modern Civilization

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• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

  Emma Lazarus

  Tired, Urbanization, Giving

  "The New Colossus" l. 10 (1883).

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• Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Art, Dark, Men

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• I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Death, Military, Hiroshima And Nagasaki

  Onthe detonationof the first atomicbomb,16 Jul1945.Quoted in Len Giovanitti and Fred FreedThe Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965).

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• I don't believe civilization can do a lot more than educate a person's senses.

  Grace Paley

  Education, Philosophy, Believe

  Grace Paley (2014). “The Collected Stories”, p.185, Macmillan

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• If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Religion, Morality

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.63, Penguin

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• The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins.

  Jose Saramago

  Years, September 11, World

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• After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.

  David Sedaris

  Art, Parent, Months

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

  William Shakespeare

  Birthday, Time, Player

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 139

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• The next war... may well bury Western civilization forever.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Peace, War, Gdp

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• Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.

  Herbert Spencer

  Progress, Definite, Homogeneity

  "First Principles", Chapter XVI. Par. 138; also Chapter XVII. Par. 145, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 241-42, 1922.

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• Xenophobia manifests itself especially against civilizations and cultures that are weak because they lack economic resources, means of subsistence or land. So nomadic people are the first targets of this kind of aggression.

  Antonio Tabucchi

  Xenophobia, Mean, Land

  "I lost a reference with whom I '...want to be someone else but without ceasing to be[me]...'" by PEDRO74, ireport.cnn.com. March 27, 2012.

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• Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace.

  Serj Tankian

  Love, Peace, Thinking

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

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