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 personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected."
"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces."
"Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity."
"Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty."
"Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years."
"The sole precoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity for philanthropic reasons and the perfection of weapons as instruments of civilization."
"A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values."
"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology."
"Unshined shoes are the end of civilization."
"From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary."
"Today's children will become tomorrow's civilization."
"A civilization is only a way of life. A culture is the way of making that way of life beautiful. So culture is your office here in America, and as no stream can rise higher than its source, so you can give no more or better to architecture than you are. So why not go to work on yourselves, to make yourselves, in quality, what you would have your buildings be?"
"The world no longer has a choice between force and law; if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law."
"Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature."
"As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions."
"Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application."
"Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission. No committee decides who may enter, no crisis of body or spirit must accompany the entrant. No tuition is charged, no oath sworn, no visa demanded. Of the monuments humans build for themselves, very few say - touch me, use me, my hush is not indifference, my space is not barrier. If I inspire awe, it is because I am in awe of you and the possibilities that dwell in you."
"The civilized man is a larger mind but a more imperfect nature than the savage."
"What is the crowning glory of your civilization... the symbol as clear a statement as the pyramids, the Parthenon, the cathedrals? What is this symbol? What is its name? Its name is Junk. Junk is the rusty, lovely, brilliant symbol of the dying years of your time. Junk is your ultimate landscape."
"Civilization depends on, and civility often requires, the willingness to say, 'What you are doing is none of my business' and 'What I am doing is none of your business.'"
