161 Ancient Civilizations Quotes

Following is our list of ancient civilizations quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about ancient.

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Famous Ancient Civilizations Quotes

Long before the advent of what scientists and scholars consider to be the beginning of human civilization, there was an age undreamed of ... the age of Atlantis. — Frederick Lenz

Civilization begins with distillation - William Faulkner

Civilization begins with distillation — William Faulkner

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. — Ariel Durant

The first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa. — John Henrik Clarke

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them. - François-René de Chateaubriand

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them. — François-René de Chateaubriand

Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism — Walter Benjamin

By the time the Egyptian civilization had begun to flourish, the earth's aura had already become so dense it was impossible to discover the secret meditation techniques. — Frederick Lenz

In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making. — Carol P. Christ

Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt. — Cheikh Anta Diop

Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages. — Gertrude Stein

All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity. — Baron d'Holbach

Forests were the first temples of the Divinity, and it is in the forests that men have grasped the first idea of architecture. — François-René de Chateaubriand

First there was Greek civilization. Then there was the Renaissance. Now we’re entering the Age of the Ass. — Jean-Luc Godard

The old Atlantean sciences from the tribe of enlightenment, of which there are only a few remnants and chards left in this world, were medicine, law, computers, and the performing arts. — Frederick Lenz

Art is the signature of civilizations. — Beverly Sills

Short Ancient Civilizations Quotes

  • Civilization -- a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures. — Malcolm Muggeridge
  • All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution. — Havelock Ellis
  • Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. — Arnold J. Toynbee
  • Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock. — Sigmund Freud

Ancient Civilizations Image Quotes

Ancient civilizations quote Thousands of tired, never-shaken, over civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the
Thousands of tired, never-shaken, over civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home, that wilderness is a necessity.

Old Ancient Quotes

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. — Pericles

Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. — Charles Dickens

The style of ancient Egyptian art is transcendently clear, something 8-year-olds can recognize in an instant. Its consistency and codification is one of the most epic visual journeys in all art, one that lasts 30 dynasties spread over 3,000 years. — Jerry Saltz

Ancient civilizations quote Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be
Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be carried in one's breath.

Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls — Robert Walser

Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires. New versions of old vices. — James Clear

If I live to be old enough, I may sit down under some bush, the last left in the utilitarian world, and feel thankful that intellect in its march has spared one vestige of the ancient forest for me to die by. — Thomas Cole

Ancient civilizations quote Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.
Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. — Wilfred Owen

As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not. — Jack Kornfield

Every trace of the old philosophy and literatureof the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth. — Saint John Chrysostom

For the May Day is the great day, Sung along the old straight track. And those who ancient lines did ley Will heed this song that calls them back... Pass the cup, and pass the Lady, And pass the plate to all who hunger, Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, Pass the cup of crimson wonder. — Jethro Tull

Ancient Quotes

We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it. — W. E. B. Du Bois

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. — Wendell Berry

İstanbul is a magical seal which unites Europe and Asia since the ancient times. Without a doubt, Istanbul is certainly the most beautiful place of the world. — Gerard De Nerval

Ancient civilizations quote I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. 'Have you found joy in your life?' 'Has your life brought joy to others?' — Morgan Freeman

O, You who are ever giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, You are our true life, luminous, wonderful, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep. — Hildegard of Bingen

How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are fault lines in the raging international con�icts of today. — Arundhati Roy

I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste. - Guru Nanak

I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste. — Guru Nanak

After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense. — Werner Heisenberg

Ubuntu is not a biblical concept but an ancient African one. Nevertheless it falls back on one simple thing: that humans have been created for togetherness, and what drives us apart is greed, lust for power, and a sense of exclusion, but those are aberrations. — Allan Boesak

I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me. - Archilochus

I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me. — Archilochus

Ancient World Quotes

We live in an age that's repeating itself endlessly. We're getting closer again to the techno-chic world we saw in Atlantis that occurs in countless planes. It's indigenous to enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

The world has always been this way. I am sure in the mystery world of Egypt, ancient Atlantis, you pick a cosmos - There is always somebody on your case. — Frederick Lenz

To the great pharaohs it mattered a great deal to bury their treasures in the pyramids, which they thought they would bring to the other worlds. But obviously it doesn't matter to them now. They went, the goods stayed. — Frederick Lenz

Ancient civilizations quote Laughter ... the most civilized music in the world.
Laughter ... the most civilized music in the world.

Who do you suppose invented computers? Speaking in terms relevant to you, in terms of earth history, let alone other worldly history, the computer, of course, came from Atlantis. — Frederick Lenz

The members of the Atlantean Mystery School were the earliest human explorers of the frontiers of inner space. Through their meditative journeys and explorations, they discovered many secret astral passageways that led to an infinite variety of other worlds and dimensions. — Frederick Lenz

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it. — Walter Savage Landor

Ancient civilizations quote There is no civil nor religios law, that has broken, nor can break the bond of fraternity which natu
There is no civil nor religios law, that has broken, nor can break the bond of fraternity which nature has established between men.

The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within. — Fritjof Capra

According to ancient mythology, trees link the Earth to the sky. In this respect trees link humans to another world. — Richard Allen

Mankind has moved away from the heart of the world to the logic of the mind, and their belief is in the chemist, the physicist, and the mathematician. Science has proven to them that all this ancient belief in ceremony is simply ignorance. — Drunvalo Melchizedek

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock. Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history. Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day. — Stephen Jay Gould

Ancient History Quotes

What I love about the stories of the Great Migration is that this is not ancient history; this is living history. Most people of color can find someone in their own family who had experienced a migration of some kind, knowing the sense of dislocation, longing and fortitude. — Isabel Wilkerson

Whereas much of what we know from ancient history is derived from one or two sources, we have no fewer than nine ancient sources, inside and outside the New Testament, corroborating the disciples' conviction that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. That's an avalanche of data. — Lee Strobel

If the people of the United States come to Iran and see its ancient history and nature of Iran, and the people of Iran go to the United States to see America, this can shorten the walls of mistrust and improve the situation for the future. — Hassan Rouhani

Ancient civilizations quote In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.
In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets - as vast and indestructible as nature itself. — Anne Rice

Is your Christianity ancient history--or current events? — Samuel M. Shoemaker

Is your Christianity ancient history--or current events? — Sam Shoemaker

Ancient civilizations quote Wine is the most civilized thing in the world
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world

I suppose I felt doomed to be an artist early on because of the way I drew all over the books that I needed for school, from ancient history to math. I was more interested in drawing in the margins than actually doing the work. — Nancy Spero

I couldn’t miss Percy’s fifteenth birthday,” Poseidon said. “Why, if this were Sparta, Percy would be a man today!” "That’s true,” Paul said. “I used to teach ancient history.” Poseidon’s eyes twinkled. “That’s me. Ancient history. — Rick Riordan

that's me. ancient history." [Poseidon to Paul] — Rick Riordan

You probably won't remember me. I'm probably ancient history. I'm one of the chosen few who went ahead and fell for you. I'm out of vogue, I'm out of touch. I fell too fast, I feel too much. I thought that you might have some advice to give on how to be insensitive. — Jann Arden

Egyptian Civilization Quotes

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours? — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The mystery school continued throughout the greater Egyptian civilization, which was the second age of humankind and later on into the third age of humankind when the Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan high cultures flourished — Frederick Lenz

Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it. — Zahi Hawass

Ancient civilizations quote We have created a Star Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and godlike
We have created a Star Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.

If the Egyptian people can create a democracy in the heart of the Arab world, it will be a more significant contribution to civilization than the great pyramids. — Lindsey Graham

The sentiments attributed to Christ are in the Old Testament. They were familiar in the Jewish schools and to all the Pharisees, long before the time of Christ, as they were familiar in all the civilizations of the earth - Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian, Greek, and Hindu. — Joseph McCabe

Syria is already in the grips of a civil war, unfortunately enough, and Egypt is moving in that direction. We would like to see the Egyptian people avoid this fate. — Vladimir Putin

The Ancient Egyptians were not fools, Carter. They built the pyramids. They created the first great nation state. Their civilization lasted thousands of years.” “Yeah,” I said. “And now they’re gone. — Rick Riordan

Human Civilization Quotes

I prefer the company of animals more than the company of humans. Certainly, a wild animal is cruel. But to be merciless is the privilege of civilized humans. — Sigmund Freud

Every civilization: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, all of them understood that LEARNING was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING, LEARNING was NOT to MAKE MORE MONEY; It was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING. — Hamza Yusuf

The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others. — Julian Bond

To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. — Thurgood Marshall

When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan. — William Paterson

Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it. — Dick Gregory

Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. — Richard P. Feynman

We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off. — John Trudell

The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation. — Peter Kropotkin

There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood. — Walter Reuther

Ancient Times Quotes

Winter always turns into Spring. Never, from ancient times on, has anyone heard or seen of winter turning back to autumn. — Nichiren

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? — William Blake

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part. — Richard Stallman

The members of the Mystery school, during the time of Atlantis, had psychically seen the subsequent ages of darkness. — Frederick Lenz

Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe. — Bill Bryson

Singing connected with movements and action is a much more ancient, and, at the same time, more complex phenomenon than is a simple song. — Zoltan Kodaly

During the time of Atlantis, members of the Mystery Schools discovered and developed specific concentration exercises that they found would radically increase and sharpen their innate psychic abilities. — Frederick Lenz

According to an ancient Sardinian legend, the bodies of those who are born on Christmas Eve will never dissolve into dust but are preserved until the end of time. — Grazia Deledda

During the age Atlantis, there were only several hundred thousand people living on our planet. They lived in a sublime state of harmony with nature. At that time, because of the purity of the earth's aura, it was much easier to meditate. — Frederick Lenz

The people to become enlightened in Atlantis lit the "flame of enlightenment" on earth for the first time. The members of the various mystery schools have kept the flame alive by passing on the secret techniques for attaining enlightenment from the time of Atlantis to our present day. — Frederick Lenz

Advanced Civilization Quotes

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent. — Henry David Thoreau

Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once. — Dave Barry

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. — Helen Keller

Atlantis was a highly evolved civilization where the sciences and arts were far more advanced than one might guess. Atlantis was technologically advanced in genetic engineering, computer science, inter-dimensional physics, and artistically developed with electronic music and crystal art forms. — Frederick Lenz

California, that advance post of our civilization, with its huge aircraft factories, TV and film studios, automobile way of life... its flavourless cosmopolitanism, its charlatan philosophies and religions, its lack of anything old and well-tried rooted in tradition and character. — J. B. Priestley

There were many stages to the Atlantean civilization. During the later stages, scientists became involved with advanced particle physics. In particular they were interested in reverse gravity fields. — Frederick Lenz

Sound money allows people to think about the long term and to save and invest more for the future. Saving and investing for the long run are the key to capital accumulation and the advance of human civilization. — Saifedean Ammous

Advanced designs in war planes and other mechanical devices cannot win a decisive victory without occupying forces to consolidate initial victories. — Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan Aly Khan

The possibility of reduced-time interstellar travel either by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations at present or ourselves in the future, is not fundamentally constrained by physical principles. — Harold E. Puthoff

Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor. — Jimmy Carter

Greek Civilization Quotes

The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions. — Karl Popper

Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list -- the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation. — Karl Marx

All the wonders of the Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than the single book of Psalms. Greece had all that this world could give her; but the flowers of Paradise blossomed in Palestine alone. — William E. Gladstone

We were discussing civilization and the fact that young men among the Greeks at that time were idiots and uneducated, so the men had emotional and friendly relationships with members of their own sex — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded. — Simone Weil

In all of Western civilization, there have been societies that celebrating the homosexuality, the ancient Greeks. But they, in fact, protected the institution of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. They got the joke. And the American people get the joke. — Ken Blackwell

I'm sure back in the Greek days or the Roman Empire days, when guys fought in arenas and were fighting lions, people were talking smack. Every era in history has someone talking smack. No way you can have talent and not proclaim your victory. — J. B. Smoove

The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people. — Charles Darwin

Thanks to my memory, which enabled me to quote Latin and to discuss Greek and Roman civilization, it became obvious to some of my colleagues in other fields that I was interested in things outside mathematics. This lead quickly to very pleasant relationships. — Stanislaw Ulam

Before the Greeks were the Tamils. The Tamils are one of the oldest civilizations thats still surviving. — M.I.A.

Ancient India Quotes

When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous — Albert Einstein

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. — Albert Einstein

Members of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz order trace their origins back through Tibet, Japan, China, India, and ancient Egypt to the place the order was founded, the lost continent of Atlantis. — Frederick Lenz

Five hundred years before Christ some physicians of ancient India, working under the influence of the Lord Buddha, advanced the art of healing to so perfect a state that they were able to abolish surgery, although the surgery of their time was as efficient, or more so, than that of the present day. — Edward Bach

The vastest knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis in ancient India; and science in its most advanced stage now is closer to Vedanta than ever before. — Alfred North Whitehead

The food we ate was Indian, and both my mother and father were very deep into the ancient philosophy of India, so it could well have been an Indian household. — Amar Bose

From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand; From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain. — Reginald Heber

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It does not behoove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indians and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity. — Voltaire

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt. — Ambrose Bierce

Chârvâkas, a very ancient sect in India, were rank materialists. — Swami Vivekananda

People Writing About Ancient Civilizations

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Read quotes by Frederick Lenz

Frederick Lenz
quotes on leadership, education and death

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Read quotes by François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René de Chateaubriand

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Read quotes by William Faulkner

William Faulkner
quotes on writing, love and death

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Read quotes by Ariel Durant

Ariel Durant
quotes on life, education and leadership

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Read quotes by John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke
quotes on history, bible

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Read quotes by Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin
quotes on art, history and photography

143 1292

More Ancient Civilizations Quotes

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. — Theodore Roosevelt

By size, population, and natural resources, Nigeria is West Africa's most powerful country. It is the continent's most populous nation and is formed from the territory of several ancient kingdoms that the British brought together. Its people have been mismanaged for decades. In colonial times the British preferred to stay in the southwestern area along the coast. Their 'civilizing' mission rarely extended to the highlands of the center, nor up to the Muslim populations in the north, and this half of the country remains less developed than the south. The Islamist group Boko Haram, which wants to establish a caliphate in the Muslim areas, has used the sense of injustice engendered by underdevelopment to gain ground in the North. When the Nigerian military come looking for them, they're operating on home ground and much of the local population will not cooperate with the military either for fear of reprisal or due to a shared resentment of the south. The territory taken by Boko Haram does not yet endanger the existence of the state of Nigeria; but they do pose a daily threat to the people in the north and they damage Nigeria's reputation abroad as a place to do business. — Tim Marshall

They wanted to preserve and protect the mystical knowledge gained from their meditation practices and pass it on to future civilizations they clairvoyantly saw were going to be born after the destruction of Atlantis — Frederick Lenz

In their meditations, the high priests and priestesses of Atlantis had seen that the Atlantean civilization was going to end cataclysmically. — Frederick Lenz

It was their intention to start twelve new civilizations similar to Atlantis in these locations. — Frederick Lenz

In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization. — Nikola Tesla

Ancient and oriental civilizations were more sensitive than we are to the cycles of things; to the succession of generations, both divine and human; and to change within stasis. Western man is virtually alone in wanting to make his God into a fortress and personal immortality into a bulwark against time. — Marguerite Yourcenar

And so, inevitably, one returns to the centre of Western culture, Greece, and we have never, in any sense, lost our ties with the architectural concepts that this country's ancient civilization explored and demonstrated, nor with the political and social freedom that lay behind them. — Stephen Gardiner

Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups. — Ahmed H. Zewail

Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition, and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when the works of our reason have passed away. — Will Durant

Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. — William Shakespeare

I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran. I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. The weight of the centuries lies on children, I'm sure of it. — Flannery O'Connor

There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing civilized societies which have somehow managed to exist for many centuries and are still in being though they have had no help from the traveler in solving their problems. — Walter Lippmann

The final test of religious faith... is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means. — Reinhold Niebuhr

And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse - the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist. — Barry Goldwater

Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race.... All is race, there is no other truth. — Benjamin Disraeli

In truth, the best long-term explanations about our ancient counterparts can be found in the paintings, sculpture, crafts, tools of utility, language and architecture left behind. These are the building blocks of civilization we call culture. These are what we call 'the arts. — Edward J. Fraughton

Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us. — William Wilberforce

If you look at any ancient civilization, they've all used fantasy stories to train the young. — David Gemmell

As the histories of ancient and modern democracies illustrate, the pressure of political movement in times of war, civil commotion, or general anxiety pushes in the direction of authority, not away from it. — Robert Heilbroner

Maui is a beautiful island. It's really the site of an ancient civilization that we've forgotten about, a civilization that existed millions of years ago. When their time came, they left this world and another race was born, the race of human beings. — Frederick Lenz

I am studying ancient civilizations, trying to find what happened to them, finding out why they went into a decline, why they died. — L. Ron Hubbard

In peace, the Middle East, the ancient cradle of civilization, will become invigorated and transformed. Throughout its lands there will be freedom of movement of people, of ideas, of goods. — Menachem Begin

We as black have to remind ourselves that we are a great people and we come from a great lineage. How can we say that we were Kings and Queens during ancient civilization but then turn around and say, 'we don't have privilege.' Who said that? What is that based on? Is that based on the white man's definition of privilege and what this system is showing us? Yes, of course. — Charlamagne Tha God

The fast paced nature of our technologically-driven world seems to create issues that would appear to be foreign to ancient civilization. — David Kim

The Logos is a voice heard, in the head. And the Logos was the hand on the rudder of human civilization for centuries, up until, in fact, the collapse of the ancient mystery religions and the ascendancy of Christianity to the status of a world religion. — Terence McKenna

Here the artist is, as it were, an archaeologist, uncovering deeper and deeper strata as he works, recovering not an ancient civilization, but something as yet unborn, unseen, unheard, except by the inner eye, the inner ear. He is not just removing apparent surfaces from some external object, he is removing apparent surface from the Self, revealing his original nature. — Stephen Nachmanovitch

The British Government in India constitutes a struggle between modern civilization, which is the Kingdom of Satan, and the ancient civilization, which is the Kingdom of God. — Mahatma Gandhi

Throughout its history, Islam has borrowed and adapted from other civilizations, both ancient and modern. — Shereen El Feki

Kafka's writings often display an insidious power to describe a wholly secular and "factical" world in which the eerie or "unheimlich" elements gang up behind or beneath the ego's awareness and immerse it in a waking dream of something Other, an alien world-order similar to ancient irrationalist cultures (in transition from primitivism to civilized mythos-culture). — Kenny Smith

I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations. — Tim Blake Nelson

Those we call the ancients were really new in everything. — Blaise Pascal

In the Atlantean civilization, law existed to create order, that is to say, to see justice was done. In the old way, the law was equal for all, not the strong win and the weak lose. — Frederick Lenz

No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome. — Carroll Quigley

In our time ... a man whose enemies are faceless bureaucrats almost never wins. It is our equivalent to the anger of the gods in ancient times. But those gods you must understand were far more imaginative than our tiny bureaucrats. They spoke from mountaintops not from tiny airless offices. They rode clouds. They were possessed of passion. They had voices and names. Six thousand years of civilization have brought us to this. — Chaim Potok

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