1,222 Quotes About Civilization

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.

Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure

The period before the deluge was the one of revelation in the Mesopotamian mythology, when the basis of all later knowledge was laid down. The antediluvian sages were culture-heroes, who brought the arts of civilization to the land. During the time that follows this period, nothing new is invented, the original revelation is only transmitted and unfolded. Oannes and other sages taught all fundations of civilization to antediluvian mankind.

People often judge the level of a civilization by the amount of paper it uses. That, however, is simply a matter of volume, not quality. Quality is how the heart and soul of a civilization should be measured. How can bad paper and high civilization possibly be bedmates?

A civilization is a tomb of the old Culture, and womb of the new.

In civilized societies, if you are offended by a cartoon, you do not burn flags, take up guns and raid buildings, chant death to your opponents, or threaten suicide bombings. You write a letter to the editor.

The Temper SonnetWhere you need to be calm,You burst out in rage.Where you need to be on fire,You walk in silence and not engage.Where you need to listen,You scream like a loudspeaker.Where you need to speak out,Somehow your words disappear.Where it requires to be humble,Pride takes over your humility.Where your blood needs to boil,Your veins seem to run empty.The right use of temper is an act of revolution.Put it to good use and you'll nourish civilization.

Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged, as astrophysicists would say, on a decaying orbit.

But a generation that knows only how to travel — can they teach a generation how to arrive?