Civilization quotes
2.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside civilization — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I think we fought Vietnam for the benefits of civilization, and certainly we fought it to oppose authority. To show our authority, to show we weren't weak. Isn't that what Nixon kept saying? "We have to show the world that we're not weak." So of course what we ended up showing the world was that we were, yep, weak. 'Cause we couldn't beat these kids in black pajamas."
"Civilization’s shortening attention span is mismatched with the pace of environmental problems."
"Everything progresses in waves. The march of civilization, the progression of worlds, is in waves. All human activities likewise progress in waves - art, literature, science, religion."
"Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education."
"Of course, one way of thinking about all of life and civilization is as being about how the world registers and processes information. Certainly that's what sex is about; that's what history is about."
"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation."
"A civilization is as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamt by artists."
"I am studying ancient civilizations, trying to find what happened to them, finding out why they went into a decline, why they died."
"The African tribesman, with his complete contempt for truth and his emphasis on brutality and savagery for others but not for himself, is a no-civilization."
"Alexander the Great changed a few boundaries and killed a few men. Both he and Napoleon were forced into fame by circumstances outside of themselves and by currents of the time, but Margaret Sanger made currents and circumstances. When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine."
"Let us get together with other people of our sort and make over the world into a great world-civilization that will enable us to realize the promises and avoid the dangers of this new time."
"Civilization does everything for the mind and favors it entirely at the expense of the body."
"A civilization based on nonviolence must be different from that organized for violence."
"I think it would be an excellent idea."
"Civilization is not an incurable disease, but it should never be forgotten that the English people are at present afflicted by it."
"Remember there is always a limit to self-indulgence, none to restraint... Civilization , in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication but in the deliberate and voluntary restriction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment , and increases the capacity for service ."
"Further march of civilization seems to employ increasing domination of man over beast, together with a growingly humane method of using them."
"Modern civilization has taught us to convert night into day and golden silence into brazen din and noise."
"Is a civilization worth the name, which requires, for its existence the very doubtful prop of a racial legislation and a lynch law?"
"This civilization is such that one has only to be patient and it will be self-destroyed."
