for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. — Rod Serling
A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values. — Ezra Pound
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. — Ayn Rand
Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. — Bertrand Russell
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful. — Primo Levi
The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society. — Mark Skousen
One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands. — Francis Galton
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. — Robert E. Howard
No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means. — Aneurin Bevan
The ability to engage in reasoned discourse, even when you passionately disagree with someone, is the hallmark of a civilized society. — Bret Weinstein
Civilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis. — Zygmunt Bauman
Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich
As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish. — Justin Welby
A modern and humane civilization must control conception or sink into barbaric cruelty to individuals. — Marie Stopes
Civilisation has, indeed, become a slaughtering-car crowned by a grinning effigy of Comfort, before which man blindly and voluntarily hurls himself in his own ignorance. — Eugen Sandow
Short Civilised Society Quotes
Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society. — Joan Ganz Cooney
Civilization is the encouragement of differences. — Mahatma Gandhi
Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas. — Arthur C. Clarke
Civilization -- a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures. — Malcolm Muggeridge
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
Civilisation Quotes
Be grateful for challenges because... Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then [each woman and] man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilisation and mental culture. — Anandi Gopal Joshi
Western civilisation needs a complete overhaul or it will fall apart one day or another. It has realised the most complete perversion of any rational order of things. Reign of matter, of gold, of machine, of number, it no longer possesses breath, or liberty, or light. — Julius Evola
Diaspora starts about a thousand years from now. Most of human civilisation has moved inside computers; essentially, a major branch of our descendants consists of conscious software. — Greg Egan
Dont look for society to give you permission to be yourself.
Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. — Samuel P. Huntington
Borne out of this, starting around the 17th Century was the Baroque era. It is my view that it is one of the architectural peak periods in western civilisation. — Harry Seidler
Civilisation never dies, it may change, but it is eternal. Where the paddy field is born on the dry river bed of Titash, there begins another civilisation. — Ritwik Ghatak
Society is not only defined by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.
Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It's central, in fact, to civilisation. — Roy Baumeister
Going to a restaurant is one of my keenest pleasures. Meeting someplace with old and new friends, ordering wine, eating food, surrounded by strangers, I think is the core of what it means to live a civilised life. — Adam Gopnik
We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves. — Donald Watson
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
Modern Civilization Quotes
If the Negro is not careful he will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it. — Marcus Garvey
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
Money can't buy manners.
Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system — Giorgio Agamben
Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the factors that propel and characterize modern civilization. The skyscraper is the point where art and the city meet. — Ada Louise Huxtable
We must open our eyes and see that modern civilization has become so complex and the lives of civilized men so interwoven with thelives of other men in other countries as to make it impossible to be in this world and out of it. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
The most violent element in society is ignorance.
I believe very firmly that indigenous populations had a really good, intuitive understanding of why we're here. And we're trying to gain that same understanding through psychology and intellect in modern civilization. — Serj Tankian
Modern civilization has no understanding of sacred matters. Everything is backwards. — Thomas Yellowtail
Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity. — Jacques Ellul
I had no idea of the historical evolution of the civilized world's music and had not realized that all modern music owes everything to Bach. — Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Being Civilized 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
I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony. — Robert E. Lee
There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party. — Ulysses S. Grant
Those who tell the stories rule society.
We want women leaders today as never before. Leaders who are not afraid to be called names and who are willing to go out and fight. I think women can save civilization. Women are persons. — Emily Murphy
Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders. — Diane Nash
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 society does not define who you are, the future does.
Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. — Mahatma Gandhi
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
Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe. — Langston Hughes
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. — John Stuart Mill
Civilized Nations Quotes
The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. — James Madison
The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally. — Patrick Pearse
We were granted the right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization nearly 4,000 years ago. For that right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of the nations. — Menachem Begin
Society has gotten to the point where everybody has a right but nobody has a responsibility.
The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
It is an honor to be awarded with such a high rating from an organization as well respected as the NAACP. I am pleased that the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the nation, has recognized my voting record. — Joe Baca
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization. — Harry S. Truman
The opposite of courage in our society isn't cowardice, its conformity.
Finland had a civil war less than 100 years ago, just like in Ireland. If you look at the history of newly independent nations, civil war is almost every time present, even in the United States. — Harri Holkeri
An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. — Roger Williams
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
The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy. — Antoine Rivarol
The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilisation. — Julian Assange
This movement among the Jews is not new... This world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing... It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century. — Winston Churchill
I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.
No form of theocracy, whether it's manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry. — Maajid Nawaz
Swedes are such a civilised, perfect society - at least on the surface. There's a great safety net, a huge middle class, free education, free health care. People are very polite, they wait their turn. They're not too loud, they're not too quiet, but sometimes it's a little too perfect. — Alexander Skarsgard
But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. Seven and a half months advance over the eye...(but) what do we do in our society, in our civilisation, to continue this process? — Daniel Barenboim
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. — Alfred North Whitehead
The foundation for a new era was laid but yesterday. The human was given its first chance to become truly civilised when it took courage to question all things and made 'knowledge and understanding' the foundation upon which to create a more reasonable and sensible society of human beings. — Hendrik Willem Van Loon
The realization of justice is, in the actual state of things, a matter of life or death for society and for civilisation itself. — African Spir
Dominance in an adaptation to anarchy and it serves no purpose in a society that has undergone a civilising process or in an international system regulated by agreements and norms. Anything that deflates the concept of dominance is likely to drive down the frequency of fights between individuals and wars. — Sayings
It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together. — Samuel Johnson
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron. — Samuel Smiles
The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation. — Benjamin Disraeli
The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while. — Alfred North Whitehead
Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives. — Alfred North Whitehead
Society needs both justice and compassion, a head and a heart, if it is to be civilised. — Julian Baggini
It crosses my mind that our generation may leave problems that are simply too hard for human society in the generations that follow. The structures that separate civilisation from disorder are thin and fragile. (But) I am not gloomy by nature so don't presume that the global community will fail the young people. — Ross Garnaut
Globalisation can provide the route for the development of a sustainable and prosperous planetary society in the next generation, provided that globalisation itself becomes more civilised than it is right now. — Peter Ellyard
The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction. — Paul Keating
Roving dogs do not indicate the civilisation or compassion of the society. They betray on the country the ignorance and lethargy of its members. — Mahatma Gandhi
The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. . . . Civilisation is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative. The recourse to force, however unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilisation, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals. Thus in a live civilisation there is always an element of unrest. For sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilised order survives on its merits, and is transformed by its power of Recognizing its imperfections. — Alfred North Whitehead
The vigour of civilised societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth while. Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth while. Such personal gratification arises from aim beyond personality. — Alfred North Whitehead
It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilisation are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows. — Alfred North Whitehead
The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society. — Roy Jenkins
Sex is probably one of the last forms of human expression to enjoy such a direct connection with nature. It might be the primary site of conflict between nature and culture. If one assumes that nature (or instinct) is repressed in a highly civilised society, then I think the conceptual dyad nature-culture is best preserved there, in the realm of sex. — Thomas Koerfer
I am a very, very strong advocate of the notion that we shouldn't equate the arts with other aspects of infrastructure. They have a unique role in any civilised society and that requires appropriate and targeted government support. — George Brandis
Even today to be civilised is held to be synonymous with being westernised. Advanced countries devote large resources to formulating and spreading ideas and doctrines and they tend to impose on the developing nations their own norms and methods. The pattern of the classical acquisitive society with its deliberate multiplication of wants not only is unsuited to conditions in our countries but is positively harmful. — Indira Gandhi
Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation. — Florence Nightingale
The direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but from what we can judge today of any civilisation. The type of man dominant today is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world. — Jose Ortega y Gasset
Whatever is fine and permanent in human achievement has been realised through individuals courageously facing the circumstances of their being; and a society is civilised to the extent to which it makes this possible. Terrorism, which aims at putting out thespiritual light, is the antithesis of civilisation. — Malcolm Muggeridge
Without the law, you can't have society. But without the arts, you can't have civilisation — Julian Burnside
Human society is born in the shadow of religious fear, and in that stage the suppression of heresy is a sacred social duty. Then comes the rise of a priesthood, and the independent thinker is met with punishment in this world and the threat of eternal damnation hereafter. Even today it is from the religious side that the greatest danger to freedom of thought comes. Religion is the last thing that man will civilise. — Chapman Cohen
I think you will agree the sign of a civilised society is a regular dining schedule. — Philippa Ballantine
It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, rules us we would have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilised men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence. — Mahatma Gandhi
In Conclusion
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