"I want co-operation between nations for the salvaging of civilization, but co-operation presupposes free nations worthy of co-operation."
Read quote
5 likes
Civilization quotes
Civilization
2.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Civilization
Browse quotes that often appear alongside civilization — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Civilization quotes (page 26 of 119)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The burgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all nations into civilization."
Read quote
5 likes
"Wars between states and people seem to have existed under all historical systems for as long as we have some recorded evidence. War is quite clearly not a phenomenon particular to the modern world-system. On the other hand, once again the technological achievements of capitalist civilization serve as much ill as good. One bomb in Hiroshima killed more people than whole wars in pre-modern times. Alexander the Great in his whole sweep of the Middle East could not compare in destructiveness to the impact of the Gulf War on Iraq and Kuwait."
Read quote
5 likes
"We can tentatively credit capitalist civilization with a positive, if very geographically uneven, record in the struggle against disease."
Read quote
5 likes
"Life creeps slowly upward.... When some forgotten inventor of the older world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILIZATION!"
Read quote
5 likes
"Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism."
Read quote
5 likes
"The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy."
Read quote
5 likes
"...while science gives us implements to use, science alone does not determine for what ends they will be employed. Radio is an amazing invention. Yet now that it is here, one suspects that Hitler never could have consolidated his totalitarian control over Germany without its use. One never can tell what hands will reach out to lay hold on scientific gifts, or to what employment they will be put. Ever the old barbarian emerges, destructively using the new civilization."
Read quote
5 likes
"Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness-they cannot work and their civilization collapses."
Read quote
5 likes
"In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved."
Read quote
5 likes
"In fact, the gravest obstacle to the restoration of civilization in North America is universal suffrage. Letting everybody vote makes no sense. Obviously they are no good at it. The whole idea smacks of the fumble-witted idealism of a high-school Marxist society."
Read quote
5 likes
"To go back to a moment of Western civilization remote enough in time so that we should be able to look at it dispassionately, ask what happened during World War I. What was the typical behavior of respected intellectuals in Germany, England, the United States? What happened to those who publicly questioned the nobility of the war effort, on both sides? I do not think the answers are untypical."
Read quote
5 likes
"In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler."
Read quote
5 likes
"We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit."
Read quote
5 likes
"A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity."
Read quote
5 likes
"The most bewildering thing about man is his idea of work and the amount of work he imposes upon himself, or civilization has imposed upon him. All nature loafs, while man alone works for a living."
Read quote
5 likes
"The test of the moral quality of a civilization is its treatment of the weak and powerless."
Read quote
5 likes
"I look forward to an america in which commands respect throughout the world, not only for its strength, but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world in which we will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction."
Read quote
5 likes
"The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins."
Read quote
5 likes
"Literature, art, like civilization itself, are only accidents."
Read quote
5 likes