Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Henry David Thoreau – Books, Civilization
Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this.
Sigmund Freud – Civilization
As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!
Mark Twain – Civilization, Humanity
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot – Civilization
As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Civilization
There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Walter Benjamin – Civilization
A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments.
T.S. Eliot – History, Society
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Book, civilization
If God hadn’t rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.
Gabriel García Marquez – God, civilization
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
George Orwell – Civilization
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
Emile Zola on Civilization
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
