"Civilization merely develops man's capacity for a greater variety of sensations, and ... absolutely nothing else."
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Civilization quotes
Civilization
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Civilization quotes (page 38 of 119)
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"I'm not trying to write a bleak and blistering screed against American civilization. I'm writing something that I hope is fun and satirical and full of possibility."
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"Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded."
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"It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level?."
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"Morals are not the important thing-nor enlightenment-nor civilization. A man can do absolutely well without them, but he can't do without something to eat. The supremest thing is the need of the body, not of the mind and spirit."
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"Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened."
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"The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart-and we consider this one of the signs of savagery."
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"The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted."
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"If you will notice, there is seldom a telegram in a paper which fails to show up one or more members & beneficiaries of our Civilization as promenading with his shirt-tail up & the rest of his regalia in the wash."
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"Okay, so what we really have to recognize and own as Americans is that our way of being is itself perhaps the greatest threat to the continuation of civilization."
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"With any new civilization... they have to have their own officers and police and governments and all that."
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"I think you try to extrapolate from the early civilizations and cultures of the continent, kind of looking for unique ways they set themselves apart from Western civilizations, and then pursue those avenues technologically and see where that takes you."
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"Our understanding of what constitutes intelligence is utterly relative. If an aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, for example, all of Western civilization would probably flunk. We have a very convenient and self-serving way of defining intelligence. If an animal does something, we call it instinct. If we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence."
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"It's hard to imagine a civilization without onions; in one form or another their flavor blends into almost everything in the meal except the desert."
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"When people have to choose between civilization and warm genitals, they choose warm genitals"
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"I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear."
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"Providence has given the United States the duty of extending Christian civilization. We come as ministering angels, not despots."
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"If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible."
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"Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever... And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator."
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"each generation devises better ways to survive. Civilization may, in one sense, be a tribute to the ingeniousness of some children in outwitting parents."
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