Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-20] of 88 Civilization quotesCivilization QuotesCivilization Next 20 quotes There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.~ John Adams In a country of such recent civilization as ours, whose almost limitless treasures of material wealth invite the risks of capital and the industry of labor, it is but natural that material interests should absorb the attention of the people to a degree elsewhere unknown.~ Felix Adler I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope~ Aeschylus People have become as processed as food.~ Astrid Alauda A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises.~ Saul Alinsky No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.~ Hannah Arendt [The US has] developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called ‘business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called ‘government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine.~ Thurman Arnold Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.~ Isaac Asimov A Fatal Tendency of Mankind. Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man -- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.~ Frederic Bastiat Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.~ Georges Bernanos I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him.~ Napoleon Bonaparte The entire world economy rests on the consumer; if he ever stops spending money he doesn't have on things he doesn't need -- we're done for.~ Bill Bonner Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.~ Edmund Burke We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton If our social conditions curtail manhood and womanhood, we must alter the social conditions. We must not go on quietly in a corner making men unmanly and women unwomanly, that they may fit into their filthy and slavish civilization.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charges known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments...Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.~ Winston Churchill America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to denigration without the usual interval of civilization.~ Georges Clemenceau There has never in the history of the civilized world been a cohort of kids that is so little affected by adult guidance and so attuned to a peer world. We have removed grown-up wisdom and allowed them to drift into a self-constructed, highly relativistic world of friendship and peers.~ William Damon The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal.~ Charles Darwin The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in men’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.~ Justice William O. Douglas Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print