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Civilization Quotes

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Civilization Quotes

“God made the forests, the tiny stars, and the wild winds-and I think that he made them partly as a balance for that kind of civilization that would choke the spirit of joy out of our hearts. He made the great open places for the people who want to be alone with him and talk to him, away from the crowds that kill all reverence. And I think that he is glad at times to have us forget our cares and responsibilities that we may be nearer him-as Jesus was when he crept away into the wilderness to pray.”

“Here's Iraq, where irrigation was invented, where law was invented, where writing was invented. All these things that we consider necessities of civilization started there. And the people who live there damn well know that.”

People Knows Writing Wells Law Civilization Iraq Damn Irrigation

Author:Bruce Cockburn

“Remember, for 5,000 years people probably rode those horses. They probably felt that horses were a permanent part of civilization. Everybody has had this moment.”

People Years Moments Remember Felt Civilization Horse Permanent

Author:Ken Moelis

“If you know anything about Islamic civilization, or about the contemporary Middle East, about the sociology and the anthropology of the people who live there, and their recent history, and their religion, and their motivation and everything, then you realize that changing Iraq into a democracy is not going to happen. It's just not going to happen.”

People Ifs Knows Happens Motivation Realizing Democracy Middle Civilization Iraq East Contemporary Islamic Middle East Sociology Anthropology

Author:Mark Helprin

“One of the biggest problems of our contemporary civilization is that there's been an interruption of transmission. People have no past in their present.”

People Problem Past Civilization Contemporary Interruptions Transmission

Author:Eugene Green

“It's one of the bases of all human existence - the relation between parents and children, whether biologically or metaphorically. It's something we can never get away from, even in a civilization where we're controlled by robots. It's the basic relationship between mature people who represent paternal and maternal figures and young people. It's universal - it's part of human existence. It's always been that way, and it will always be that way if humans remain around.”

People Ifs Way Humans Children Young Parent Existence Figures Civilization Universal Bases Relation Get Away Mature Controlled Robots Human Existence Children And Parents

Author:Eugene Green

“I often say that I'm a Buddhist-Episcopalian. I say that partly to annoy people.I like to annoy people who think that a religion can contain the whole truth. No religion, it seems to me, contains the whole truth. I think it's mad to think that there is nothing to learn from other traditions and civilizations. If you accept that other religions have something to offer and you learn from them, that is what you become: a Buddhist-Episcopalian or a Hindu-Muslim or whatever.”

People Ifs Thinking Whole Seems Accepting Civilization Offers Tradition Mad Buddhist Annoying Whole Truth Episcopalians

Author:Ninian Smart

“From arts, to literature, to science, to the founding of Christian institutions, all of that has its roots in a biblical worldview, but when you fail to recognize that it's the systemic reality of the greatest civilization in the history of humanity, you can become apathetic about what you actually now have. We have something that generations of people did not have.”

People Art Reality Christian Humanity Literature Failing Generations Civilization Roots Institutions Biblical Founding Worldview Apathetic Biblical Worldview

Author:Hank Hanegraaff

“Civilization rests on the fact that most people do the right thing most of the time.”

People Love Life Facts Romance Sex Civilization Right Thing

Author:Dean Koontz

“The only people who steal are thieves, and that’s a very small percentage of civilization. Most people want to have some way to make the economic transaction valid. They want to return the favor, if you will… return the benefit and reciprocate...”

People Ifs Way Want Economic Return Civilization Benefits Favors Stealing Thieves Percentages Transactions Reciprocate

Author:Michael Nesmith

“We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page.”

People War States Turns Belief Born United Responsibility United States Share Civilization Mets Pages Iraq Remarkable Chapters Ashes New Beginnings Cradle

Author:Barack Obama

“Xenophobia manifests itself especially against civilizations and cultures that are weak because they lack economic resources, means of subsistence or land. So nomadic people are the first targets of this kind of aggression.”

People Firsts Kind Mean Culture Economic Land Civilization Resources Weak Target Aggression Xenophobia Subsistence Nomadic Economic Resources

Author:Antonio Tabucchi

“Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic. It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order.”

People World Country Lasts Order Millions Forever Civilization Educated Iran Crucial

Author:Fareed Zakaria

“Of course, with agriculture came the first big civilizations, the first cities built of mud and brick, the first empires. And it was the administers of these empires who began hiring people to keep track of the wheat and sheep and wine that was owed and the taxes that was owed on them by making marks; marks on clay in that time.”

People Firsts Bigs Courses Cities Civilization Taxes Built Mark Wine Track Empires Sheep Agriculture Mud Bricks Clay Hiring Wheat

Author:Howard Rheingold

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

Source: Christian Reflections

“If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.”

Source: I have a dream: the life and words of Martin Luther King, Jr

“The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster cruel vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes fools and hypocrites.”

“Civilizations are not remembered by their business people, their bankers or lawyers. They're remembered by the arts.”

People Art Civilization Lawyer Remembered Bankers

Author:Eli Broad

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”

People Knows World Important Ideas Done Literature Fun Fiction Talking Civilization Science Fiction World History Fiction Writers Birthing

Author:Ray Bradbury

“To reverse the effects of civilization would destroy the dreams of a lot of people. There's no way around it. We can talk all we want about sustainability, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter that these people's dreams are based on, embedded in, intertwined with, and formed by an inherently destructive economic and social system. Their dreams are still their dreams. What right do I -- or does anyone else -- have to destroy them. At the same time, what right do they have to destroy the world?”

People World Way Want Doe Stills Matter Dream Social Economic Effects Civilization Destructive Sustainability Reverse Embedded Social Systems Intertwined

Author:Derrick Jensen

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.”

People Able Lasts Levels Products Civilization Leisure Relaxation

Author:Bertrand Russell

“It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down. No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels. I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars. Violet. The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.”

People May Ends Kids Lasts Forever Goes On Civilization Burning Attractive Violet Last Day Cellars Tumbling Tumbling Down

Author:Matthew Tobin Anderson

“What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!”

People Civilization Achievement Sick Extraordinary Diets Extraordinary Achievement

Book:Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Source: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”

People Way Care Age Funny Young Fear Society Civilization Members Tests Old Age Our Society Helpless Old People Elders Helplessness This Society Deserted Senior Citizen

Author:Pearl S. Buck

“It is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it?”

People Knows Age Spiritual Purpose Asks Lost Loss Civilization Ego Tragedy Old Age Dimensions Cracks Shells Emphasis Spiritual Dimensions Personal Tragedy

Author:Eckhart Tolle

“I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.”

People Way Believe Feelings I Believe Hurt Four Civilization Western I Believe In Tea Clock Decline Take Time Courtesy Western Civilization Hurting People

Book:The View from Saturday

Source: The View from Saturday

“The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.”

“It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.”

“In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out.”

People Ends Happens Brain Break Happened Havens Civilization Ashley Wilkes

Book:Gone with the wind

Source: Gone with the wind

“Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. Socrates made the same point 2,400 years ago: "He is richest who is content with least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.”

People Years Mean Made Ends Certain Social Wealth Poverty Amount Civilization Years Ago Relation Invention Contentment Goods Small Amounts Social Status

Author:Christopher Ryan

“Experience teaches that for most people there is a limit beyond which their constitution cannot comply with the demands of civilization. All who wish to reach a higher standard than their constitution will allow, fall victims to neurosis. It would have been better for them if they could have remained less "perfect".”

People Ifs Has Beens Fall Wish Perfect Teach Higher Civilization Demand Limits Standards Constitution Victim Neurosis Higher Standards

Book:Sexuality and The Psychology of Love

Source: Sexuality and The Psychology of Love

“But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.”

People Energy Creative Civilization Machines Tokens Creative Power

Book:Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking

Source: Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking

“We're living in a funny world kid, a peculiar civilization. The police are playing crooks in it, and the crooks are doing police duty. The politicians are preachers, and the preachers are politicians. The tax collectors collect for themselves. The Bad People want us to have more dough, and the good people are fighting to keep it from us. It's not good for us, know what I mean? If we had all we wanted to eat, we'd eat too much. We'd have inflation in the toilet paper industry. That's the way I understand it. That's about the size of some of the arguments I've heard.”

“Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

Source: A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes

“When all this is over, people will try to blame the Germans alone, and the Germans will try to blame the Nazis alone, and the Nazis will try to blame Hitler alone. They will make him bear the sins of the world. But it's not true. You suspected what was happening, and so did I. It was already too late over a year ago. I caused a reporter to lose his job because you told me to. He was deported. The day I did that I made my little contribution to civilization, the only one that matters.”

People World Trying Years Littles Made Matter Jobs Loses Sin Bears Civilization Late Happenings Years Ago Blame Contribution Too Late Reporters Nazi True You Willful Ignorance

Book:Dream of Scipio

Source: Dream of Scipio

“Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.”

People Virtue Creation Civilization Decided Corruption Dependent Barbarians

Book:Waiting for the Barbarians

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians

“They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.”

People Thinking Men Mean Children Country Reason Whole Courses Stupid Civilization Slave Various Criminals Enlightened One Man Tyrants Stupid People Vets Extraction

Author:Terry Pratchett

“[T]he normal and the everyday are often amazingly unstoppable, and what is unimaginable is the cessation of them. The world is resilient, and, no matter what interruptions occur, people so badly want to return to their lives and get on with them. A veneer of civilization descends quickly, like a shining rain. Dust is settled.”

People World Want Matter Return Civilization Normal Rain No Matter What Shining Everyday Dust Resilient Unimaginable Interruptions Unstoppable Veneer

Author:Lorrie Moore

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.”

People Art Life Is Culture Nations Civilization Ordinary Mere Mortals Ordinary People Merriment Gnats Circumspection Gods And Goddesses Mere Mortals

Book:Christian Reflections

Source: Christian Reflections

“Shamefully, all of us have wanted revenge on someone at some point for something. I've lived since before man and buffalo roamed this small planet. I have survived the beginning, bloom, and death of countless enemies, civilizations, and people. And the one truth I have learned most during all of these centuries is the old Japanese proverb. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”

People Ifs Men Long Enough Body Wanted Enemy Century Planets Civilization Rivers Revenge I Have Learned Survived Floats Buffalo Japanese Proverbs

Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon

“...what makes you older is when your bones, muscles and blood wear out, when the heart sinks into oblivion and all the houses you ever lived in are gone and people are not really certain that your civilization ever existed.”

People Heart Certain House Gone Blood Civilization Bones Muscles Oblivion

Author:Richard Brautigan

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't get credit for discovering a land already populated by indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.”

People Two America Land Century Civilization Ocean Hundred Blue West Credit Communist Discovering Ninety Indigenous Fourteen Columbus Indigenous People West Indies

Author:Jon Stewart

“What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.”

People Trying Culture Situation Civilization Standing Billions Shoulders Teeth Pleasant Kicking Mind Blowing Blowing It

Author:Terence McKenna

“I thought society would do the right thing. Now I look around and I think -- society never does the right thing. Sometimes people do the right thing. Sometimes one person makes a difference. But civilization has rules, and I've learned them well -- never be helpless, never be sick, never be poor.”

People Thinking Wells Looks Persons Doe Sometimes Differences Poor Civilization Sick Right Thing I've Learned Making A Difference Helpless

Author:Christina Dodd

“A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples' character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe. ... What a terrible future!”

“I think one of the big errors people are making right now is thinking that old-style businesses will be obsolete, when actually they will be an important part of this new civilization. Some retail groups are introducing e-commerce and think that the bricks are no longer useful. But they will continue to be important.”

People Thinking Important Bigs Business Mistake Technology Groups Style Internet Civilization Right Now Errors Introducing Commerce Bricks Obsolete Retail E Commerce

Author:Carlos Slim

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.”

“The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty . . . . Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys basic people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people.”

People World Important Facts Money Beauty Virtue Honor Civilization Universal Regard Important Things Noble Generosity Hopeful

Book: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

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

“Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people's hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human brain with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human heart with compassion. This is what the real role of religion is.”

“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.”

Source: The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy