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
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?
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
The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The Philistine
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
The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.
PEARL S. BUCK
My Several Worlds
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
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
In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
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
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
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 like a 747, the filtered air, the muzak oozing over the earphones, the phony sense of security, the chemical food, the plastic trays ... an idiot savant in the cockpit manipulating computerized controls built by sullen wage workers and dependent for his directions on sleepy technicians high on amphetamines with their minds wandering to sports and sex.
T. FULANO
"Civilization Is Like a Jetliner", Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections
Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Ponkapog Papers
Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Telling
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
Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilisation reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?
ÉMILE ZOLA
L'Argent
The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away.
JACK LONDON
"The Unexpected", Love of Life and Other Stories
Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.
TIMOTHY LEARY
attributed, Still Casting Shadows