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Civilization quotes

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“The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. Columbus did not set out to seek a new route to China in response to a...” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

“There are many humorous things in the world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.” Mark Twain, Following the Equator

“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

“You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.” Honoré de Balzac, Father Goriot

“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, The Fountainhead

“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“I ate civilization. . . . It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then . . . I ate my own wickedness.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Savages! where are there not any? Besides, are they worse than others, these whom you call savages?” Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

“The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity of imagination.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation, and at present very few people have reached this level.” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact...” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

“Only the language of civilized people may be spoken, thus no German.” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, History

“I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.” Edith Wharton, House of Mirth

“When any civilization is dust and ashes . . . art is all that’s left over.” Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“While there are two ways of contending, one by discussion, the other by force, the former belonging properly to man, the latter to beasts, recourse must be had to the latter if there be no opportunity for employing the former.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties

“They had generally acquired some of the vices of civilization, but none of the virtues, except in individual cases.” Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

“The cradles of civilization are the putrid sinks of the world, the charnel house to which the stinking wombs confide their bloody packages of flesh and bone.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Related topics

imagination fate society savagery progress nature vice cannibalism men freedom morality ignorance government justice virtue youth equality art history pleasure

Related authors

Aldous Huxley (2)
Carl Sagan (2)
Milton Friedman (1)
William Shakespeare (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Victor Hugo (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Ray Bradbury (1)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Herman Melville (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Honoré de Balzac (1)
Mao Zedong (1)
Henry Miller (1)

Related sources

Brave New World (2)
Cosmos (2)
Capitalism and Freedom (1)
The Devil's Dictionary (1)
Les Misérables (1)
Walden (1)
Following the Equator (1)
The Conquest of Happiness (1)
The Social Contract (1)
Moby-Dick (1)
The Fountainhead (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
As You Like It (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
Fahrenheit 451 (1)
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1)
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1)
On Duties (1)
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1)
Father Goriot (1)