Civilization Quotes

The origin of civilization is man’s determination to do nothing for himself which he can get done for him.

H.C. Bailey (1878-0961) British crimewriter.

Civilization by which I here mean barbarism made strong and luxurious by mechanical power.

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) British author.

Civilization a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit vultures.

Malcolm Muggeridge (b.1903) British journalist.

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

Civilization is the lamb’s skin in which barbarism masquerades.

Our civilization is not even skin deep; it reaches no lower than our clothes. Humanity is still essentially yahoo manity.

Every new generation is a fresh invasion of savages.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?

Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

The three great elements of modern civilization, gunpowder, printing, and the Protestant religion.

Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) Scottish author.

Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry’s haunting curse, the Incomplete!

All that is best in the civilization of today, is the fruit of Christ’s appearance among men.

Daniel Webster.

More than one of the strong nations may shortly have to choose between a selfish secular civilization, whose God in science, and an unselfish civilization whose God is Christ.

R.D. Hitchcock.

If  you would civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.

Victor Hugo.

Here is the element or power of conduct, of intellect and knowledge, of beauty, and of social life and manners, and all needful to build up a complete human life. We have instincts responding to them all, and requiring them all, and we are perfectly civilized only when all these instincts of our nature all these elements in our civilization have been adequately recognized and satisfied.

Matthew Arnold.

In order to civilize a people, it is necessary first to fix it, and this cannot be done without inducing it to cultivate the soil.

De Tocqueville.

The most civilized people are as neat to barbarism, as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.

Rivarol.

The trust test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, not the crops, but the kind of man that the country turns out.

Emerson.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is toward barbarism.

Hare.

The ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest sate of civilization, are as productive of selfishness as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of the lowest.

Colton.

It is the triumph of civilization that at last communities have obtained such a mastery over natural laws that they drive and control them. The winds, the water, electricity, all aliens that in their wild form  were dangerous are now controlled by human will, and are made useful servants.

H.W. Beecher.

Civilization is the upward struggle of mankind, in which millions are trampled to death that thousands may mount on their bodies.

Balfour.

Nations like individuals, live or die, but civilization cannot perish.

Mazzini.

The old Hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. First, men were in chains, that went back to an iron hand then he saw them led by threads from the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. The first was despotism, iron, and ruling by force. The last was civilization, ruling by ideas.

Wendell Phillips.