210 Civilization Quotes to Inspire and Enlighten Your Path of Progress

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Famous Civilization Quotes

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

Civilization is the encouragement of differences. — Mahatma Gandhi

for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. — Rod Serling

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. - Arnold J. Toynbee

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. — Arnold J. Toynbee

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation. — Terence McKenna

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Civilization -- a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures. - Malcolm Muggeridge

Civilization -- a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. - Mark Twain

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. — Mark Twain

Civilization begins with distillation - William Faulkner

Civilization begins with distillation — William Faulkner

Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity. — Herbert Spencer

Civilization is a social plague on the planet, and vices are just as necessary to it as is a virus to disease. — Charles Fourier

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

Sedentary culture is the goal of civilization. It means the end of its lifespan and brings about its corruption. — Ibn Khaldun

Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas. — Arthur C. Clarke

Civilization is hideously fragile... there's not much between us and the Horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish. — C.P. Snow

Short Civilization Quotes

  • Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock. — Sigmund Freud
  • Justice is indivisible. You can't decide who gets civil rights and who doesn't. — Angela Davis
  • Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither. — Benjamin Franklin
  • I just couldn't move. History had me glued to the seat. — Claudette Colvin
  • Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders. — Diane Nash
  • A defiant deed has greater value than unnumerable thousands of words. — Emmeline Pankhurst
  • There is a source of power in each of us that we don't realize until we take responsibility. — Diane Nash
  • The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others. — Julian Bond
  • Abolish the Loyal League and the Ku Klux Klan; let us come together and stand together. — Nathan Bedford Forrest
  • Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civilization Image Quotes

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. - Arnold J. Toynbee quote

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. — Arnold J. Toynbee

Civilization 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.
The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children. - Nelson Mandela quote

The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children. — Nelson Mandela

**** the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! - David Farragut quote

**** the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! — David Farragut

Civility costs nothing, and buys everything. - Mary Wortley Montagu quote

Civility costs nothing, and buys everything. — Mary Wortley Montagu

Civilization 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.
Now, gentlemen, let tomorrow be their Waterloo! - P. G. T. Beauregard quote

Now, gentlemen, let tomorrow be their Waterloo! — P. G. T. Beauregard

Hate is too great a burden to bear. - Coretta Scott King quote

Hate is too great a burden to bear. — Coretta Scott King

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau quote

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Civilization quote I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it. - George Pickett quote

I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it. — George Pickett

I like to pay taxes.  With them, I buy civilization. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quote

I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

You're at your best when you don't know what you're doing. - Paul Stanley quote

You're at your best when you don't know what you're doing. — Paul Stanley

Take the best that exists and make it better. - Henry Royce quote

Take the best that exists and make it better. — Henry Royce

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. - Francois FeNelon quote

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. — Francois FeNelon

A civilization that denies death ends by denying life. - Octavio Paz quote

A civilization that denies death ends by denying life. — Octavio Paz

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

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

I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding. - Steven Wright quote

I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding. — Steven Wright

When you don't know what you're doing, fake it. - Jill Shalvis quote

When you don't know what you're doing, fake it. — Jill Shalvis

The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members - Pearl S. Buck quote

The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members — Pearl S. Buck

From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization. - Friedrich Engels quote

From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization. — Friedrich Engels

That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg! - George Pickett quote

That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg! — George Pickett

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act. - Bobby Scott quote

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act. — Bobby Scott

Civilization quote Laughter ... the most civilized music in the world.
Laughter ... the most civilized music in the world.

Madness And Civilization Quotes

I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music. — William Shakespeare

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. — William Tecumseh Sherman

And of course you are mad, if by a madman we mean a mind that questions and rejects every civilized norm. — Stephen Fry

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

Granted that every war is madness-civil war, fratricide, is the worst of all; it reaches deeper into ugliness, cruelty and absurdity. — Elie Wiesel

Ancient Civilization Quotes

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

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

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

Civilization quote Wine is the most civilized thing in the world
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world

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

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

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

Civilization 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civilization 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.

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

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience. — Harry Belafonte

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

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

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

Western Civilization Quotes

Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. — Aldous Huxley

Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name! — Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. — Vine Deloria, Jr.

Free speech is not some right-wing reframing of whatever; it is the foundation of Western civilization. — Konstantin Kisin

Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet. — Terence McKenna

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea. — Mahatma Gandhi

In Western Civilization, our elders are books. — Gary Snyder

An important aspect of the Eurasian worldview is an absolute denial of Western civilization. In the opinion of the Eurasians, the West with its ideology of liberalism is an absolute evil. — Aleksandr Dugin

To be sure, the story of Hurricane Katrina does have a moral for anyone not deliberately blind. The races are different. Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization-any kind of civilization-disappears. — Jared Taylor

Advanced Civilization Quotes

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

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

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We've made so many advances in other areas - civil rights, gay rights - but ageism is still an area that's taboo and not talked about and dealt with. — Madonna Ciccone

General Sickles, this is in some respects higher ground than that to the rear, but there is still higher in front of you, and if you keep on advancing you will find constantly higher ground all the way to the mountains. — George Meade

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roman Civilization Quotes

You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, and wipe it clean of life - but if you desire to defend it, protect it,and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did - by putting your soldiers in the mud. — T. R. Fehrenbach

I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C. — D. H. Lawrence

If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption, or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse. — Cory Booker

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. — Edward Gibbon

This scripture [Romans 13:1-6] is wrested from the scope of God's Spirit, and the nature of the place, and cannot truly be interpreted to mean that the power of the civil magistrate may be exercised in spiritual or soul matters. — Roger Williams

Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today. — Arthur Erickson

My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion. — Joseph Barbera

In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, - into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion. — Edward Everett

We may be sure that out of the ruins of our capitalist civilization a new religion will emerge, just as Christianity emerged from the ruins of the Roman civilization. — Herbert Read

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. — Edward Gibbon

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

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

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

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

Being Civilized Quotes

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

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

Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe. - Langston Hughes

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

Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course. — Alexander Hamilton

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less — Susan B. Anthony

The President is no more than a well-meaning baboon. I went to the White House directly after tea, where I found "The Original Gorilla", about as intelligent as ever. What a specimen to be at the head of our affairs now. — George B. McClellan

I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done. — John Brown

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

Ancient Civilizations Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civilized Nations Quotes

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

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

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

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

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. — John Adams

Civilized Behavior Quotes

Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards. — Ted Koppel

Standing up to bullies is the hallmark of a civilized society. — Robert Reich

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization - including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain - without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. — Thomas Sowell

In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces. — W. Somerset Maugham

The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization. — Robert Anton Wilson

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized. — E. G. Stakman

It seems to me that we have to draw the line in sibling rivalry whenever rivalry goes out of bounds into destructive behavior of aphysical or verbal kind. The principle needs to be this: Whatever the reasons for your feelings you will have to find civilized solutions. — Selma Fraiberg

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized. — Ayn Rand

We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior. — Friedrich Durrenmatt

The measure of civilized behavior is compassion. — Paul Theroux

Civilised Society Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

People Writing About Civilization

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Read quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi
quotes on education, leadership and success

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Read quotes by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand
quotes on love, government and success

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Read quotes by Rod Serling

Rod Serling
quotes on life

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Read quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee

Arnold J. Toynbee
quotes on education, leadership and life

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Read quotes by Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna
quotes on love, psychedelics and death

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Read quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich
quotes on friendship, education and religion

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More Civilization Quotes

Alabama soldiers, all I ask of you is to keep up with the Texans! - Robert E. Lee quote

Alabama soldiers, all I ask of you is to keep up with the Texans! — Robert E. Lee

The most powerful force in the universe is gossip. - Dave Barry quote

The most powerful force in the universe is gossip. — Dave Barry

The first great thing is to find yourself and for that you need solitude and contemplation - at least sometimes. I can tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places. — Fridtjof Nansen

No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means. — Aneurin Bevan

Science is the most reliable guide for civilization, for life, for success in the world. Searching a guide other than the science is meaning carelessness, ignorance and heresy. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State? — Robert E. Lee

I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights. — David Duke

You ultimately judge the civility of a society not by how it treats the rich, the powerful, the protected and the highly esteemed, but by how it treats the poor, the disfavored and the disadvantaged. — Bryan Stevenson

I don't know how long it has been since my ear has been free from the roll of a drum. It is the music I sleep by, and I love it.... I shall remain here while anyone remains, and do whatever comes to my hand. I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. — Clara Barton

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity. — John Muir

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. — Mahatma Gandhi

With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relative, my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the Army. — Robert E. Lee

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. — Frederick Douglass

The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization. — Otto von Bismarck

In Conclusion

Quotes about civilization also shed light on the potential pitfalls and challenges that civilizations may face. They caution against the dangers of greed, corruption, and the abuse of power, which can lead to the downfall of a civilization. These quotes remind us of the fragility of civilization and the need for constant vigilance to protect the values and principles that underpin it. They urge us to be mindful of the impacts of our actions on society and to work towards creating a just and equitable civilization that benefits all its members. Quotes about civilization serve as a source of wisdom and guidance, encouraging us to reflect on our roles and responsibilities as members of a civilized society.

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