Quotes tagged ‘civilization’

“Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them ima…”

— H. L. Mencken, amazon.com

“Well, the cornerstone of civilization isn't language, it's science.”

— Eric Heisserer, Ian Donnelly, Jeremy Renner, imdb.com

“All I'm saying is that civilization is organized by couples, for better or worse. Frequently worse, I grant you. But there's a reason for it, which is that it's not confusing.”

— Victor Levin, Sam Bloom, Frank Langella, imdb.com

“Language is the foundation of civilization, it is the glue that holds the people together, it is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”

— Eric Heisserer, Ian Donnelly, Jeremy Renner, imdb.com

“Rebellion against technology and civilization is real rebellion, a real attack on the values of the existing system. But the green anarchists, anarcho-primitivists, and so forth (The 'GA Movement') have fallen under such heavy influence from the left that their rebellion against civilization has to…”

— Ted Kaczynski, theanarchistlibrary.org

“That’s the world we live in, Monica. Every day a new disaster, when the one thing no one is prepared for will wipe the slate clean. We refuse to imagine our impending extinction, the acceleration of the cataclysms. We’ve thrown science out the window in favor of scandal and opinion and cant and all…”

— Chris Carter, Cigarette Smoking Man, William B. Davis, imdb.com

“When civilization ends, it ends fast.”

— Marco Ramirez, Daniel Salazar, Rubén Blades, imdb.com

“Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.”

— Terry Pratchett, amazon.com

“Book: Whatever horror he witnessed, whatever acts of barbarism it was done by men, nothing more. Jayne: Reaver's ain't men. Book: Of course they are. Too long removed from civilization perhaps, but men. And, I believe there's a power greater than men. A power that heals. Mal: Reavers might take issu…”

— Tim Minear, Joss Whedon, Jayne Cobb, Adam Baldwin, imdb.com

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

— Tennessee Williams, amazon.com

“Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.”

— Hannibal Lector, amazon.com

“You're on a jet, you're five miles in the air, you're going 500 miles an hour, and you ask someone to bring you another Coke. That is as weird to me as any joke I said last night. I think that's why people identify with me, because there are a billion pieces of information, and there's so much chaos…”

— Steven Wright, avclub.com

“New and inexhaustible sources of general prosperity have been opened; the effects of distance have been averted by the inevitable genius of our people.”

— Martin Van Buren, amazon.com

“In God's wildness lies the hope of the world—the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.”

— John Muir, amazon.com

“Our crude civilization engenders a multitude of wants, and lawgivers are ever at their wits' end devising. The hall and the theater and the church have been invented, and compulsory education. Why not add compulsory recreation? Our forefathers forged chains of duty and habit, which bind us notwithst…”

— John Muir, amazon.com

“Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-pass…”

— John Muir, amazon.com

“What we call chauvinistic education—in the case of the French people, for example—is only the excessive exaltation of the greatness of France in all spheres of culture or, as the French say, civilization. The French boy is not educated on purely objective principles. Wherever the importance of the p…”

— Adolf Hitler, amazon.com

“Does anybody honestly believe that human progress originates in the composite brain of the majority and not in the brain of the individual personality? Or may it be presumed that for the future human civilization will be able to dispense with this as a condition of its existence? But may it not be t…”

— Adolf Hitler, amazon.com

“Bunk: Boy, them Greeks and those twisted-ass names. McNulty: Man, back off the Greeks. They invented civilization. Bunk: Yeah? Ass-fucking, too.”

— George Pelecanos, Bunk Moreland, Wendell Pierce, imdb.com

“We who are educated have to be pioneers of Indian civilization. The white people have reached a high standard of civilization, but how many years has it taken them? We are only beginning; so do not try to put us down, but help us to climb higher. Give us a chance.”

— Susan La Flesche Picotte, smithsonianmag.com