Famous Quotes about Civilization (43 Quotations)

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

Each new generation is a fresh invasion of savages.

Every new stroke of civilization has cost the lives of countless brave men, who have fallen defeated by the ''dragon,'' in their efforts to win the apples of the Hesperides, or the fleece of gold. Fallen in their efforts to overcome the old, half sordid savagery of the lower stages of creation, and win the next stage.

I think there are only three things America will be known for 2, 000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music and baseball.

If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?

One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.

People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilization. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilization; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.

Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence.

The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

The civilized savage is the worst of all savages.

The human race has improved everything, but the human race.

The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.

The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.

The test of civilization is its estimate of women.

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

The word ''civilization'' to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing. For me it was always so. I don't believe in the golden ages, you see… civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture.

To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.