C Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with C. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it. A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer's receptiveness of new truth.”
“Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind, independent of the prevalent one among the crowds, and in opposition to it - a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.”
Source: A Treasury of Albert Schweitzer
“Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. It comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction.”
“Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.”
“Civilization consists in the multiplication and refinement of human wants.”
“Civilization could not exist until there was written language, because without written language no generation could bequeath to succeeding generations anything but its simpler findings.”
“Civilization could not exist without tremors of desire and without the counteracting, negation force of disciplined denial. Nor would the gyratory pulsations of a lively civilization exist devoid of the convulsive chemistry of union and repellency. We are born with a desire to be immortal. Cursed with the knowledge that we must die, people live their orthodox lives out by displaying reckless abandon as to the outcome of human life or nervously hounded by utter despondency nipping their heels. How we resolve this decidedly human complex of carrying out our daily lives while burden by our inescapable mortality determines our essential character. The collation of similar values adopted by our community determines who we are as a people.”
“Civilization creates discontents; barbarism creates quick endings.”
“Civilization degrades many in order to exalt the few.”
“Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.”
Source: Table-talk
“Civilization depends not only upon the knowledge of the people, but upon the use they make of it. If knowledge be wrongfully used, civilization commits suicide. Broadly speaking, the college is not to educate the individual, but to educate society. The individual may be ignorant and vicious. If society have learning and virtue, that will sustain him. If society lacks learning and virtue, it perishes. Education must give not only power but direction. It must minister to the whole man or it fails.”
“Civilization depends on our expanding ability to produce food efficiently, which has markedly accelerated thanks to science and technology.”
“Civilization depends on, and civility often requires, the willingness to say, 'What you are doing is none of my business' and 'What I am doing is none of your business.'”
“Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.”
Source: Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
“Civilization did not come with fire. It came with the discovery of how to use fire to heat water.”
“Civilization does everything for the mind and favors it entirely at the expense of the body.”
“Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.”
Source: Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)
“Civilization does not have to be ugly; civilization can well be civilized! And the only way to create a civilized civilization is to create an environmentally friendly civilization!”
“Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.”
Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It
“Civilization doesn't live in definition, it lives in action.”
Source: Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live
“Civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.”
“Civilization, especially if of the austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of respectability.”
Source: Billy Budd and Other Tales
“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.”
“Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.”
Source: Last Essays
“Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication - particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials.”
“Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.”
“Civilization has a built-in lag time. Just like light delay. We fly out here to this new place, and because we're civilized, we think civilization comes with us. It doesn't. We build it. And while we're building it, a whole lot of people die. You think the American west came with railroads and post offices and jails? Those things were built, and at the cost of thousands of lives. They were built on the corpses of everyone who was there before the Spanish came.”
Source: Cibola Burn
“Civilization has always been a bust.”
“Civilization has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas of a soil rich in wild species ... Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consist only of this one item.”
Source: Tristes Tropiques
“Civilization has developed executive powers far beyond its understanding.”
“Civilization has evolved toward more acceptance, understanding and tolerance of global thinking. If we accept differences, our creativity booms. It makes life much more colorful. It also makes humanity much more safe. If we see pureness somewhere as something to be desired, the trouble starts.”
“Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things.”
“Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.”
“Civilization has imposed countless restrictions and conventions on each of us, with the result that the subconscious in the majority of us has become a storage room without a key. We are forced to suppress or forget so many events and ideas and thoughts that those to which we should have access are lost in the welter. However, there are people who seem capable of unlocking this part of their minds and extracting relevant information.”
Source: The weak-eyed bat
“Civilization has its roots in the soil.”
“Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviors by other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively. . . .”
Source: Abstracts of the Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud
“Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.”
“Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains; and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.”
Source: Mardi and a Voyage Thither: Volulme Three, Scholarly Edition
“Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.”
“Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.”
Source: A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
“Civilization has taught man how to live in dense crowds, and by that very fact those crowds are likely ultimately to constitute a majority of the world’s population. Already there are many who prefer this crowded life, but there are others who do not, and these will gradually be eliminated. Life in the crowded conditions of cities has many unattractive features, but in the long run these may be overcome, not so much by altering them, but simply by changing the human race into liking them.”
“Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around we use our fingers.”
Source: Will Rogers' Weekly Articles: The Roosevelt Years, 1933-1935
“Civilization impairs physical fitness.”
Source: Pilates' Return to Life Through Contrology
“Civilization in certain respects is as inadequate as it was a thousand years ago.”
“Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.”
“Civilization involves subjection of force to reason, and the agency of this subjection is law.”
“Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.”
Source: The Power-House
“Civilization is a disease produced by the practice of building societies with rotten material.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal.”
“Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace.”