Civilization Quotes

Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

Timothy Leary

We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge.

George Will

I have seen the science I worshipped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.

Charles Lindbergh, Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper (letter to the editor)

Remember! Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights - Then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward, that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

Endicott Peabody

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ideas are the factors that lift civilization. They create revolutions. There is more dynamite in an idea than in many bombs.

Bishop Vincent

Early civilizations complained about still earlier ones, much as we do about both.

Author Unknown

Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.

Arnold Toynbee

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.

Mark Twain

If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.

Eugene V. Debs