1,222 Quotes About Civilization

[N]ow we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it.

A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy.

This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world's divinely appointed ruler: 'I will not LET them starve. I will not LET the drought come. I will not LET the river flood.

Throughout history libraries have testified to what a civilization meant, or wanted to believe it meant.

In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions."[Why Societies Collapse, ABC Local, July 17, 2003]

In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people behave. If you ask me, being cultured and civilized is not about everyone being free and equal; it's about everyone being refined enough to act as if they were. Then no one has to feel guilty.

Bodies spasm in birth, death, and trauma. So too do civilizations.

The collapse of a civilization is a tragedy. The collapse of an anti-civilization is a relief. The collapse of a pseudo-civilization is a formality.

I remind myself that madmen really exist. Sometimes they achieve the highest levels of political power in modern industrial nations.