Civilized Quotes - Page 18

• How dangerous it is rashly to adopt the Mosaical institutions [Old Testament teachings of eye for an eye]. Laws might have been proper for a tribe of ardent barbarians wandering through the sands of Arabia which are wholly unfit for an enlightened people of civilized and gentle manners.

  Gerald Heaney

  Teaching, Eye, Law

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• Feminism was recognized by the average man as a conflict in which it was impossible for a man, as a chivalrous gentleman, as a respecter of the rights of little nations (like little Belgium), as a highly evolved citizen of a highly civilized community, to refuse the claim of this better half to self-determination.

  Wyndham Lewis

  Determination, Men, Rights

  Wyndham Lewis (1926). “The Art of Being Ruled”

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• I’ll take your bet,” he said grimly. “I’m going to win it. And in three months, I’m going to put this back on your finger, and take you to bed, and do things to you that are outlawed in the civilized world.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Winning, Bed, Three

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• It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt... In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal... This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Pain, Revenge, Real

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• Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at.

  David Sedaris

  Weed, Squirrels, Looks

  "This Old House" by David Sedaris, www.newyorker.com. July 9, 2007.

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• I have heard about the civilized,
  the marriages run on
  talk, elegant and
  honest, rational.
  But and I are savages.

  Sharon Olds

  I Love You, Running, Savages

  Sharon Olds, “Primitive”

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• I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.

  Mother Jones

  Children, Knowledge, Gun

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• The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.

  Iris Murdoch

  Healing, Heart, Men

  IRIS MURDOCH (1965). “THE RED AND THE GREEN”

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• Walls, towns, rules, and day-to-day life doesn't make us civilized ... That's organization and ritual. Civilization lives in our hearts and heads or it doesn't exist at all.

  Jonathan Maberry

  Wall, Heart, Civilization

  Jonathan Maberry (2012). “Dust & Decay”, p.437, Simon and Schuster

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• I think dating courtesies are common courtesies that should be practiced in most all civilized encounters. I pine for the days of good, old-fashioned manners.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Thinking, Dating, Encounters

  Karen Marie Moning (2016). “The Fever Series 7-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever, Iced, Burned”, p.523, Dell

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• One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.5, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve. -The Joker

  Christopher Nolan

  Dark, Curves, Knights

  "Fictional character: The Joker". "The Dark Knight", www.imdb.com. 2008.

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• Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Life, Simple, Temporary Insanity

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.155, University of Georgia Press

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• Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.

  Donald Berwick

  Care, Definitions, Wealth

  "'Glenn Beck': Who Is Donald Berwick?". www.foxnews.com. July 09, 2010.

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• As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only 'doing their duty'

  George Orwell

  Writing, Flying, Trying

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.109, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Every brain is civilized, Every nerve is analyzed, Everything is criticized when you are in need.

  Bob Dylan

  Brain, Needs, Nerves

  Song: Unbelievable, Album: Under The Red Sky, 1990

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• Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once.

  Dave Barry

  Birthday, People, Age

  Dave Barry (1994). “The World According to Dave Barry”, Outlet

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• In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today.

  Albert Einstein

  Country, Military, Party

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• Poverty is the openmouthed relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society. And it is hell enough.

  Henry George

  Society, Poverty, Hell

  Louis Freeland Post, Henry George (1899). “The Single Tax: An Explanation, with Colored Charts and Illustrated Notes of the Land, Labor, and Fiscal Reform Advocated by Henry George”

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• Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?

  Orson Scott Card

  Mean, Waiting, Want

  Orson Scott Card (2002). “Ender's Shadow”, p.49, Macmillan

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• It is a noteworthy fact that kicking and beating have played so considerable a part in the habits which necessity has imposed on mankind in past ages that the only way of preventing civilized men from beating and kicking their wives is to organize games in which they can kick and beat balls.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Sports, Sarcastic, Past

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• Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves- either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing.

  Orson Scott Card

  Strong, Valentine, Passion

  Orson Scott Card (2009). “Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quintet”, p.235, Tor Books

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• That the will of the people can be established by voting for democrats is, of course, a delusion. Yet when considering a non-threatening system for deciding between diverse interests, then voting, of course, can be regarded as a humane and civilized process.

  Robert Musil

  People, Voting, Democracy

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• I think in our desire to create a better America,we have to have civilized debate in this country and not just yelling.

  Craig Ferguson

  Country, Thinking, Yelling

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• for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.

  Rod Serling

  Peace, Fear, Race

  "Fictional character: narrator". "The Twilight Zone. The Shelter", www.imdb.com. 1961.

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