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| Potala Palace Tibet |
America may be unique in being a country which has leaped from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. John O’Hara
Human life in common is only made possible when a majority come together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. Sigmund Freud
A nation advances in civilization by increasing in wealth and population, and by multiplying the accessories and paraphernalia of life. William Ralph Inge
One cannot raise the bottom of a society without benefiting everyone above. Michael Harrington
A cheerful, intelligent face is the end of culture. Emerson
Every social system is more or less against nature, and at every moment nature is at work to reclaim her rights. Paul Valery
As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure. John Dewey
Every society to which you remain bound robs you of a part of your essence, and replaces it with a speck of the gigantic personality which is its own. Jose Rodo
Wherein does barbarism consist, unless in not appreciating what is excellent. Goethe
The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved. Bertrand Russell
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries. Mark Twain
The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious, if it injures the conscience it is criminal. Henri Frederick Amiel
Culture is simply how one lives and is connected to history by habit. Le Roi Jones
In civilized society we all depend upon each other and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind. Samuel Johnson
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur. Alfred North Whitehead
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizes of man. Benjamin Disraeli
A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions. Alfred North Whitehead
In the dust where we have buried the silent races and their abominations we have buried so much of the delicate magic of life. D. H. Lawrence
The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, no, but the kind of man the country turns out. Emerson
Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization. Andre Maurois
The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others. Santayana
Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the present with the past. Neither in countries without a present nor in those without a past is it to be discovered. Cyril Connolly
Culture has never the translucidities’ of custom; it abhors all simplification. In its essence it is opposed to custom, for custom is always the deterioration of culture. Frantz Fanon
Civilization does everything for the mind and favors it entirely at the expense of the body. Napoleon
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. Rousseau
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit. Matthew Arnold
Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures. Walter Lippmann
Culture is the one thing we cannot deliberately aim at. It is product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake. T. S. Eliot
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better of equal hope in the world? Abraham Lincoln
A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them. Saint-Exupery
Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival. William Ralph Inge
The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being, which cannot be proved existentially to the sense organs where it matters supremely that the human person is inviolable, that reason shall regulate the will, that truth shall prevail over error. Walter Lippmann
A good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella; artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. G. K. Chesterton
The chaos of our society is the product of the dishevelment of our ideas. Philip Wylie
Necessity reconciles and brings men together, and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws. Montaigne
In a state of nature the weakest go to the wall; in a state of over-refinement, both the weak and strong go to the gutter. Elbert Hubbard
We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all. Emerson
Human history, if you read it right, is the record of the efforts to tame father. Next to striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male. Max Lerner
Society is a kind of parent to its members. If it, and they, are to thrive, its values must be clear, coherent and generally acceptable. Milton R Sapirstein
Our culture impedes the clear definition of any faithful self-image; indeed, of any clear image whatever. We do not break images; there are few iconoclasts among us. Instead, we blur and soften them. Edgar Z. Friedenberg
