quotations about civilization
Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Civilization is come. It has shut up a million of men within an area of four square leagues; it has stalled them in streets, houses, apartments, rooms, and chambers eight feet square; after a time it will make them shut up one upon another like the tubes of a telescope.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Life in civilized countries is so complex that men there have more ways to be good than savages have, and more to be bad; more to be happy, and more to be miserable. And in each way to be good or bad, their generally superior knowledge--their knowledge of more things--enables them to commit greater excesses than the savage can. The civilized philanthropist wreaks upon his fellows a ranker philanthropy, the civilized rascal a sturdier rascality. And--splendid triumph of enlightenment!--the two characters are, in civilization, frequently combined in one person.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
In every case where civilization has in any way been introduced among those whom we call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Typee
I want to take the word Christianity back to Christ himself, back to that mighty heart whose pulse seems to throb through the world to-day, that endless fountain of charity out of which I believe has come all true progress and all civilization that deserves the name .. I go back to that great Spirit which contemplated a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. That sacrifice is not one of exclusion, but of an infinite and endless and joyous inclusion. And I thank God for it.
JULIA WARD HOWE
What is Religion?
The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The Philistine
The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.
PEARL S. BUCK
My Several Worlds
A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
The same old hypocrisy. Life is a fight, and the strongest wins. All civilization does is hide the blood and cover up the hate with pretty words!
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
There is no accepted test of civilization. It is not wealth, or the degree of comfort, or the average duration of life, or the increase of knowledge. All such tests would be disputed. In default of any other measure, may it not be suggested that as good a measure as any is the degree to which justice is carried out, the degree to which men are sensitive as to wrong-doing and desirous to right it?
JOHN MACDONELL
Historical Trials
The essence of civilization is that men should come to be led more by hope and ambition and example and less by fear.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Full Employment in a Free Society
A lost civilization can't be reborn.
SACRIFICE
"Salvation", Apocalypse Inside
You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.... You are captives--and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?--your captivity and the captivity of the world.
DANIEL QUINN
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
Industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
Civilization, is a fine and beautiful structure. It is as picturesque as a Gothic cathedral, but it is built upon the bones and cemented with the blood of those whose part in all its pomp is that and nothing more. It cannot be reared in the ungenerous tropics, for there the people will not contribute their blood and bones.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.
TIMOTHY LEARY
attributed, Still Casting Shadows
Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge. There has to be someone ready when it blows up.
RAY BRADBURY
Fahrenheit 451
Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Ponkapog Papers
We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster.
CARL SAGAN
interview with Anne Kalosh, 1995