The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

I may now add that 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.

It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct....

Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward with a claim...to save mankind from this sense of guilt, which they call sin.

The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

the first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization.

...the first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization.