Civilization quotes

Civilization

2.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Civilization quotes (page 2 of 119)

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Roger Williams Theologian, Minister
Civilization

"All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and administrations, are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship."

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Al Gore Politician
Civilization

"As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change."

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George Washington Military Leader, Politician
Civilization

"Freemasonry is an institution founded on eternal reason and truth; whose deep basis is the civilization of mankind, and whose everlasting glory it is to have the immovable support of those two mighty pillars, science and morality."

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Victor Hugo Novelist, Poet
Civilization

"We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution."

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Frederick Douglass Social Reformer, Writer
Civilization

"If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come."

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Theodore Roosevelt Politician, Author
Civilization

"If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay."

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Helen Keller Author, Activist
Civilization

"It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance it allotted length."

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Haile Selassie Emperor
Civilization

"Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous."

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Victor Hugo Novelist, Poet
Civilization

"Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity."

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Donald Watson Environmental Activist
Civilization

"We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves."

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Emma Goldman Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
Civilization

"‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship."

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist
Civilization

"The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women."

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Simone de Beauvoir Philosopher, Writer
Civilization

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine."

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