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Civilisation Quotes

Browse 327 quotes about Civilisation.

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Civilisation Quotes

“It has been said that he who was the first to abuse his fellow-man instead of knocking out his brains without a word, laid thereby the basis of civilisation.”

MenFirstsHas BeensSaidBrainAbuseBasesFellowsFellow ManCivilisationKnocking
Book:Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson: Evaluation and dissolution of the nervous system. Speech. Various papers, addresses and lectures
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“In the circle where I was raised, I knew of no one knowledgeable in the visual arts, no one who regularly attended musical performances, and only two adults other than my teachers who spoke without embarrassment of poetry and literature — both of these being women. As far as I can recall, I never heard a man refer to a good or a great book. I knew no one who had mastered, or even studied, another language from choice. And our articulate, conscious life proceeded without acknowledgement of the preceding civilisations which had produced it.”

MenArtI CanTwoBookChoicesLiteratureLanguageTeacherHeardConsciousAdultsPerformancesRaisedMusicalCirclesVisualsSpokesRecallsEmbarrassmentCivilisationBeing A WomanKnowledgeableGreat BookAcknowledgementVisual ArtMusical Performance
Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

PeopleDifferentProblemCultureFundamentalsWestIslamConvincedBordersObsessedIslamicBloodyFundamentalismSuperiorityCivilisationInferiorityClash Of CivilizationsIslamic Fundamentalism
Author:Samuel P. Huntington
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“Like every other destruction of optimism, whether in a whole civilisation or in a single individual, these must have been unspeakable catastrophes for those who had dared to expect progress. But we should feel more than sympathy for those people. We should take it personally. For if any of those earlier experiments in optimism had succeeded, our species would be exploring the stars by now, and you and I would be immortal.”

PeopleIfsFeelsShouldHas BeensWholeWould BeIndividualStarsProgressDestructionOptimismSpeciesExperimentsImmortalExploringCatastropheCivilisationUnspeakable
Author:David Deutsch
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“It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves.”

PeopleHumansMoralBreakSawsCrimeIllusionDestructionFoundationSacredLaysPropertyValuableBritishSupremeCommitCrueltyDeceptionHuman LifeMeritSuperiorityOathCivilisationGangstersInsatiableTreacheryNecessary ThingsMoral Superiority
Author:C. L. R. James
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“I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.”

ThinkingWorldFeelsHappenedCenturyTerribleUnderstoodIndiaAncientDestroyedTemplesRealisingWoundedInvasionCivilisationOld World
Author:V. S. Naipaul
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“As in the fine arts, the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilisation is marked by a gradual succession of triumphs over the rude materialities of nature, so in the art of cookery is the progress gradual from the earliest and simplest modes, to those of the most complicated and refined.”

ArtProgressMankindFineCivilizationCookingComplicatedTriumphRudeSimplestSuccessionCivilisationRefinedFine ArtsBarbarismCookeryMateriality
Book:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition
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“No civilisation, not even that of ancient Greece, has ever undergone such a continuous and profound process of change as Western Europe has done during the last 900 years. It is impossible to explain this fact in purely economic terms by a materialistic interpretation of history. The principle of change has been a spiritual one and the progress of Western civilisation is intimately related to the dynamic ethos of Western Christianity, which has gradually made Western man conscious of his moral responsibility and his duty to change the world.”

MenWorldYearsHas BeensMadeDoneFactsLastsSpiritualProcessTermResponsibilityMoralChristianityPrinciplesProgressImpossibleEconomicDutyConsciousEuropeProfoundWesternAncientClassicRelatedChanging The WorldInterpretationGreeceCivilisationMaterialisticEthosWorld ClassMoral ResponsibilityAncient GreeceWestern EuropeProcess Of Change
Author:Christopher Dawson
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“I really feel like civilisation's already over. It's not ending but it's already done. We're all addicted to the concept that humanity equals civilisation and that's not the case. We need a global conversation to be able to decipher how we can live from this point forward. We have to redefine our relationship with our environment.”

NeedsFeelsDoneAbleHumanityCasesEnvironmentConversationConceptsOver ItOur RelationshipOur EnvironmentCivilisationDecipher
Author:Serj Tankian
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“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm... If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”

IfsNeedsEarthHumanityWishMillionsEffectsPossibilityPlanetsEvidenceClimateEnvironmentalClimate ChangeCurrentsPreservesTargetOngoingCivilisationAdaptedIrreversible
Author:James Hansen
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“The industrial civilisation is based on the consumption of energy resources that are inherently limited in quantity and that are about to become scarce. When they do, competition for what remains will trigger dramatic economic and geopolitical events; in the end, it may be impossible for even a single nation to sustain industrialism as we have know it in the twentieth century.”

KnowsMayEndsEnergyNationsImpossibleEconomicCenturyEventsResourcesRemainsCompetitionEnvironmentalDramaticQuantityConsumptionTwentieth CenturyTriggersCivilisationScarceGeopolitical
Book:The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
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“The collapse of the world's banking system and the impending disaster of accelerating climate change are not separate phenomena. They are simply the most visible symptoms of a particular model of capitalism that will bring civilisation to its knees. But those symptoms will not get sorted unless and until we commit to a radical transformation of the way we create and distribute wealth in the world today”

WorldWayTodayWealthParticularModelsCapitalismTransformationClimateClimate ChangeDisasterCommitRadicalKneesVisibleCollapseSymptomsBankingWorld TodayCivilisationBanking System
Author:Jonathon Porritt
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“We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and arational.”

MeanSelfFacesFormUsedCultureIndividualSidesDoubtMaterialsConflictReflectionPassionateRationalUsed To BeCollectivesIronicIrrationalSpontaneousAutonomyCivilisationWellbeingSelf-doubtIndividual Autonomy
Author:Terry Eagleton
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