Civilization quotes
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside civilization — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery."
"Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces."
"No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual."
"If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of the standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half ce"
"I think religion has often played a very positive role. Take western civilization, the Catholic Church has played an honorable role in helping those in need. In contrast, the US carried out a virtual war against the church in central America in the 1980's primarily because prime elements in the church were working with great courage and honor to help those in need. And to organize them to help themselves."
"It [is of] some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life."
"When Black Flag and DOA and all those bands were touring in the early 80s, it was kind of a forest and you just kind of got your way through it. Now it's like a six lane highway with Starbucks every twenty meters. That's just civilization."
"Increasingly constructive doubt is the sign of advancing civilization. We must put question marks along many of our inherited legal dogmas, since they are dangerously out of line with social facts."
"The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization."
"Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested."
"If the Egyptian people can create a democracy in the heart of the Arab world, it will be a more significant contribution to civilization than the great pyramids."
"The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late...'"
"Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts."
"It is commonly said and known that each civilization has its own religion. Now my claim is that if we look deeper, the different civilizations were brought into being by the different revelations."
"Surely the only sound foundation for a civilization is a sound state of mind."
"In a civilization like ours, I feel that everyone has to come to terms with the claims of Jesus Christ upon his life, or else be guilty of inattention or of evading the question."
"If education is beaten by training, civilization dies."
"Our civilization depends largely on paper."
"Wherever we look, the work of the chemist has raised the level of our civilization and has increased the productive capacity of the nation."
"Not long ago I heard a Navy chaplain refer to the sage advice of the Apostle to put first things first...If we are to heed the admonition to put first things first...one of the main essentials which lies at the very beginning of civilization is that of security."
