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Civilization quotes

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“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick” - 1851

“You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.” Honoré de Balzac, “Father Goriot” - 1835

“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“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” - 1841

“The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity of imagination.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“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” - 1623

“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” - 1943

“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” - 1885

“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” - 1762

“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” - 44 BC

“Civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“Only the language of civilized people may be spoken, thus no German.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“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” - 1964

“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” - 1934

“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” - 1962

“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” - 1897

“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” - 1980

“I ate civilization. . . . It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then . . . I ate my own wickedness.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“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” - 1854

“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” - 1905

“When any civilization is dust and ashes . . . art is all that’s left over.” Margaret Atwood, “Oryx and Crake” - 2003

“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” - 1870

“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” - 1930

Related topics

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

Related authors

Aldous Huxley (2)
Carl Sagan (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Herman Melville (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Victor Hugo (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Edith Wharton (1)
Ulysses S. Grant (1)
Honoré de Balzac (1)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1)
Marcus Tullius Cicero (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Mao Zedong (1)
Ray Bradbury (1)
Henry Miller (1)

Related sources

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