Quotes about Civilization

Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it one cannot attain the Science of Life.

We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library

In a living society every day is a day of judgment; and its recognition as such is not the end of all things but the beginning ofa real civilization.

Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.

God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make a choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.

I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defined. And then, I ate my own wickedness.

But industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning.

Primitive man explored the pharmaceutical avenues of escape from the world with a truly astonishing thoroughness. Our ancestors left almost no natural stimulant, or hallucinant, or stupefacient, undiscovered. Necessity is the mother of invention; primitive man, like his civilized descendant, felt so urgent a need to escape occasionally from reality, that the invention of drugs was fairly forced upon him.

What I glory in is the civilized, middle way between stink and asepsis. Give me a little musk, a little intoxicating feminine exhalation, the bouquet of old wine and strawberries, a lavender bag under every pillow and potpourri in the corners of the drawing-room. Readable books, amusing conversation, civilized women, graceful art and dry vintage, music, with a quiet life and reasonable comfort?—that's all I ask for.

Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?" asked Bernard. The Savage nodded. "I ate civilization." "What?" "It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added, in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism.