Codi: Gives you the willies, doesn’t it? The thought of raising kids in a place where the front yard ends in a two-hundred-foot drop? (referring to cliff dwellings)
Loyd: No worse than raising up kids where the front yard ends in a freeway.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Essayist, Poet
There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of men the country turns out.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The vigour of civilised societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth while. Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth while. Such personal gratification arises from aim beyond personality.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
A living civilization creates; a dying, builds museums.
—Martin H. Fischer
We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence. The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
They civilize what’s pretty
By puttin’ up a city
Where nothin’ that’s
Pretty can grow….
They civilize left
They civilize right
Till nothing is left
Till nothing is right.
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–86) American Lyricist, Librettist
I stood on a tower in the wet,
And New Year and Old Year met,
And winds were roaring and blowing:
And I said, “O years, that meet in tears,
Have ye aught that is worth the knowing?
Science enough and exploring,
Wanderers coming and going,
Matter enough for deploring,
But aught that is worth the knowing?”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
Modern man is just ancient man… with way better electronics.
—Unknown
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Each new generation is a fresh invasion of savages.
—Hervey Allen (1889–1949) American Writer
Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
—Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) British Historian
It is the triumph of civilization that at last communities have obtained such a mastery over natural laws that they drive and control them. The winds, the water, electricity, all aliens that in their wild form were dangerous, are now controlled by human will, and are made useful servants.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Civilization is the lamb’s skin in which barbarism masquerades.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American Writer, Poet, Critic, Editor
As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
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.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
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.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
Where there are humans
you’ll find flies,
and Buddhas.
—Kobayashi Issa (1763–1828) Japanese Haiku Poet
Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
The human race has improved everything, but the human race.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports, suicides, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts, revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines, sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, condoms, peccaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc., etc.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Essayist, Physician
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