The median family of four ... paid $4,722 in federal taxes last year. That's enough to pay for a new curtain for the secretary of commerce's office, to bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn ... seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime. Surely civilization would collapse without such essential services.

We the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency-a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential...the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising...Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on earth itself.

Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with our planet. Unless we quickly and profoundly change the course of our civilization, we face an immediate and grave danger of destroying the worldwide ecological system that sustains life as we know it.

We face a climate crisis now that is the most serious challenge our civilization has ever confronted. And the greatest country in the world [America] has to remain a part of this unprecedented global agreement to deal with it.

Reached only by boat, seaplane and, with less surety, telephone-this is Fire Island, a pile of sand beneath a pile of people.

A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.

And this is the mission of the church--not civilization, but salvation--not better laws, purer legislation, social elevation, human equality and liberty, but first, the "kingdom of God and His righteousness;" regenerated hearts, and all other things will follow.

America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.

There was something horrifying in the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call 'civilization,' we have carved up what we claim is one world into 200 artificially created entities we call 'nations' and armed to apprehend or kill anyone who crosses a boundary.

Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion....