Best 2527 quotes in «civilization quotes» category

Modern civilisation has based its specific foundation on the principle of liberty which states that man is not a mere instrument to be used by others but rather a main autonomous living being.

Modern civilization depends on science … James Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other, and that the tendency of all is to improve the human mind, and give it new sources of power and enjoyment … narrow minds think nothing of importance but their own favorite pursuit, but liberal views exclude no branch of science or literature, for they all contribute to sweeten, to adorn, and to embellish life … science is the pursuit above all which impresses us with the capacity of man for intellectual and moral progress and awakens the human intellect to aspiration for a higher condition of humanity. [Joseph Henry was the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, named after its benefactor, James Smithson.]

Morals are nothing but a civilized society’s attempt to tame some beast called man.

Most of human history had been industry versus nature, with industry winning.

Music and symbols, they're older than human race. Prehuman beings used them to teach early mankind.

My argument has long been that the Edfu Building Texts reflect real events surrounding a real cataclysm that unfolded between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago, a period known to paleoclimatologists as the Younger Dryas and that the Texts call the 'Early Primeval Age.' I have proposed that the seeds of what was eventually to become dynastic Egypt were planted in the Nile Valley in that remote epoch more than 12,000 years ago by the survivors of a lost civilization and that it was at this time that structures such as the Great Sphinx and its associated megalithic temples and the subterrranean chamber beneath the Great Pyramid were created. I have further proposed that something resembling a religious cult or monastery, recruiting new initiates down the generations, deploying the memes of geometry and astronomy, disseminating an 'as-above-so-below' system of thought, and teaching that eternal annihilation awaited those who did not serve and honor the system, would have been the most likely vehicle to carry the ideas of the original founders across the millennia until they could be brought to full flower in the Pyramid Age.

My broad conclusion is that an advanced global seafaring civilization existed during the Ice Age, that it mapped the earth as it looked then with stunning accuracy, and that it had solved the problem of longitude, which our own civilization failed to do until the invention of Harrison's marine chronometer in the late eighteenth century. As masters of celestial navigation, as explorers, as geographers, and as cartographers, therefore, this lost civilization of 12,800 years ago was not outstripped by Western science until less than 300 years ago at the peak of the Age of Discovery.

My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important: what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

Nations rise and fall, flourish and decay, by what they believe in and by what their culture stands for.

No civilization can thrive or survive if it refuses to adapt or change.

Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century, who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing... and the Gospel according to St. Thomas... was a new thrust like the titanic thrust of Gothic engineering; and its strength was in a God that makes all things new.

Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces. You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew. I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it.

Nothing holds back human progress as frequently as the misbelief that the words ‘impossible’ and ‘improbable’ are synonyms.

Occasionally I glanced at the big blue cradle of civilization hanging in the sky, remembered for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that none of this had any right to be happening, and reminded myself for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that the only sane response was to continue carrying the tune.

Of course I realized that the Protestants denominations of the world have grown and matured over the years, but maybe we should not throw away the gains of the old Protestants that brought us to our modern day civilization.

Of one thing I am certain: No single people, tradition, religion, governmental form, ethical program, moral code, or civilization has had sufficient wisdom and goodness to set the pattern and govern he world in the was of peace, decency and mutual respect. I do not believe God ever intended it to be that way. He wants us to reach out and learn from the wisdom he has given to humanity over broad sweeps of time and place and personality.

Nothing distresses the civilized person like unfettered nature. The Grand Canyon seen from behind the railing is indeed a splendid sight, but as soon as the desert reclaims your golf course that is another matter altogether.

O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults.

Old Age homes are civilization's dumpsites for human beings who it cannot exploit further.

One thus gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature or civilization itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed. And in fact it is not difficult to indicate those defects. While mankind has made continual advances in its control over nature and may expect to make still greater ones, it is not possible to establish with certainty that a similar advance has been made in the management of human affairs; and probably at all periods, just as now once again, many people have asked themselves whether what little civilization has thus acquired is indeed worth defending at all. One would think that a re-ordering of human relations should be possible, which would remove the sources of dissatisfaction with civilization by renouncing coercion and the suppression of the instincts, so that, undisturbed by internal discord, men might devote themselves to the acquisition of wealth and its enjoyment. That would be a golden age, but it is questionable if such a state of affairs can be realized. It seems rather that every civilization must be built upon coercion and renunciation of instinct; it does not even seem certain that if coercion were to cease the majority of human beings would be prepared to undertake to perform the work necessary for acquiring new wealth. One has, I think, to reckon with the fact that there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti-cultural, trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behavior in human society.

Once information slipped the bonds of gravity and friction, it tended to gather where it was most valuable.

Only by the aid of language does reason bring about its most important achievements, namely the harmonious and consistent action of several individuals, the planned cooperation of many thousands, civilization, the State; and then, science, the storing up of previous experience, the summarizing into one concept of what is common, the communication of truth, the spreading of error, thoughts and poems, dogmas and superstitions. The animal learns to know death only when he dies, but man consciously draws every hour nearer his death; and at times this makes life a precarious business, even to the man who has not already recognized this character of constant annihilation in the whole of life itself.

Our political system is now run by the Big People for their own interests. If they ever deign to notice the Little People, it is with disdain and contempt.

Our current ever-devouring reality, sustained and perpetuated by our long-standing beliefs of power and profit before all life on earth, is arrogant and unyielding insanity. Here’s why: A reality of unbridled greed and exploitive competition pushes all of humanity to the threshold of insanity by demanding the lowest expression of our human nature in order to simply survive. In short, it dehumanizes us daily. The ones doing the dehumanizing and the ones who are dehumanized - both exist in a less than humane state of consciousness. A dehumanized reality. Which explains why so very often a socially concerned corporate manager, who puts human interests ahead of profit maximization is not praised but quickly joins the ranks of the unemployed. Our being dehumanized daily also explains the blind opportunistic greed of gentrification, our money obsessed life repudiating healthcare system, our continually growing poverty class – ad nauseum. In essence, all of the cruel ways with which we think about and treat one another (and the earth) is encouraged, enforced and repeatedly engendered as the only available dominate reality. Mistakenly, this is believed to be our fundamental human nature or as pseudoscience explains it “survival of the fittest” and as religion teaches “we are all born sinful.” Which in turn engenders, in every generation, the belief that it is virtually impossible for humans to be more humanized, more civilized. The propagated belief that humans are hopelessly hard-wired; created to be nothing more than sinful, wicked little hairless monkeys continues century after century; and so we have remained for the last eleven thousand years a pseudo civilization. “Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized.” Albert Einstein Our entire social stratification of wealth, income, race, social competition, education, and power - from birth to death - is constantly reiterated into our conscious and unconscious minds as Normal. Civilized. The Dominant Reality. For instance, our antagonistic competition for life is plainly evident when opposing groups or cultural realities come into contact or collide with the realities of other individuals, other groups, societies, and cultures. All of which are equally real realities to each other - even the illusionary realities – even the oppressive ones - but our existing in a dehumanized state more often than not separates us from one simple humane quality and ultimate realization: The lives of other human beings.

On why 300 years separates the first use of glass lenses in spectacles and their use in a telescope: “In many cases there are times when an invention is technologically possible – and in which it may indeed appear necessary, as the telescope may have – but without a market the idea will not sell, and in the absence of the technical and social infrastructure to support it, the invention will not survive.

Orgy-porgy, round and round and round, beating one another in six-eight time.

Our Freedoms come from those that keep our beliefs, our ideology, and lifestyle safe. You may never know who they are but salute their presence. Their only glory is knowing we recognize their efforts even if they are but ghosts.

O what we ben! And what we come to!

People are suffering, what's that to us! Nation is suffering, what's that to us! Society is suffering, what’s that to us! The world is suffering, what's that to us! Such mentality has shoved our entire human civilization into the abyss of misery.

Peace ought not be regarded the height of civilization, else like barbarians we forever battle for peace.

People still have different religions and national identities. But when it comes to the practical stuff – how to build a state, an economy, a hospital, or a bomb – almost all of us belong to the same civilisation. There are disagreements, no doubt, but then all civilisations have their internal disputes. Indeed, they are defined by these disputes. When trying to outline their identity, people often make a grocery list of common traits. That’s a mistake. They would fare much better if they made a list of common conflicts and dilemmas. For example, in 1618 Europe didn’t have a single religious identity – it was defined by religious conflict. To be a European in 1618 meant to obsess about tiny doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants or between Calvinists and Lutherans, and to be willing to kill and be killed because of these differences. If a human being in 1618 did not care about these conflicts, that person was perhaps a Turk or a Hindu, but definitely not a European.

People in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn't got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge.

Pharaohs It took Khufu twenty-three years to build his Great Pyramid at Giza, where some eleven hundred stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons, had to be quarried, moved, and set in place every day during the annual building season, roughly four months long. Few commentators on these facts can resist noting that this achievement is an amazing testimonial to the pharaoh’s iron control over the workers of Egypt. I submit, on the contrary, that pharaoh Khufu needed to exercise no more control over his workers at Giza than pharaoh Bill Gates exercises over his workers at Microsoft. I submit that Egyptian workers, relatively speaking, got as much out of building Khufu’s pyramid as Microsoft workers will get out of building Bill Gates’s pyramid (which will surely dwarf Khufu’s a hundred times over, though it will not, of course, be built of stone). No special control is needed to make people into pyramid builders—if they see themselves as having no choice but to build pyramids. They’ll build whatever they’re told to build, whether it’s pyramids, parking garages, or computer programs. Karl Marx recognized that workers without a choice are workers in chains. But his idea of breaking chains was for us to depose the pharaohs and then build the pyramids for ourselves, as if building pyramids is something we just can’t stop doing, we love it so much.

Politics doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt politics.

Politics bores you?" Bronsen said. Julien smiled. "It does. Apologies, sir, and it is not that I haven't tried to be fascinated. But careful and meticulous research has suggested the hypothesis that all politicians are liars, fools, and tricksters, and I have as yet come across no evidence to the contrary. They can do great damage, and rarely any good. It is the job of the sensible man to try and protect civilization from their depradations.

[Pope] Clement waved his hands in irritation as if to dismiss the very idea. "The world is crumbling into ruin. Armies are marching. Men and women are dying everywhere, in huge numbers. Fields are abandoned and towns deserted. The wrath of the Lord is upon us and He may be intending to destroy the whole of creation. People are without leaders and direction. They want to be given a reason for this, so they can be reassured, so they will return to their prayers and their obiediences. All this is going on, and you are concerned about the safety of two Jews?

Prayer and Meditation Matthew 14 AND HE WENT UP INTO THE MOUNTAIN APART TO PRAY This was always the practice of Jesus when he would move into the masses, the crowd, afterwards he would go alone into deep prayer and meditation. Why did he do this? If you have been meditating, you will understand. You will understand that once you start meditating, a very fragile and delicate quality of consciousness is born in you. A flower of the unknown, of the beyond, starts opening, which is delicate. And whenever you move into the crowd, you lose something. Whenever you come back from the crowd, you come back lesser than you had gone. Something has been lost, some contact has been lost. The crowd pulls you down, it has a gravitation of it's own. You may not feel it if you live on the same plane of consciousness. Then there is no problem, then you have nothing to lose. In fact, when you live in the crowd, on the same plane, alone you feel very uneasy. When you are with people, you feel good and happy. But alone, you feel sad, your aloneness is not aloneness. It is loneliness, you miss the other. You do not find yourself in the aloneness, you simply miss the other. When you are alone, you are not alone, beacuse you are not there. Only the desire to be with others is there - that is what loneliness is. Always remember the distinction between aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is a peak experience - loneliness is a valley. Aloneness has light in it, loneliness is dark. Loneliness is when you desire others; aloneness is when you enjoy yourself. When Jesus would move into the masses, into the crowd, he would tell his disciples to got to the other shore of the lake, and he would move into total aloneness. Not even the disciples were allowed to be with him. This was a constant practice with him. Whenever you go into the crowd, you are infected by it. You need a higher altitude to purify yourself, you need to be alone so that you can become fresh again. You need to be alone with yourself, so that you become together again. You need to be alone, so that you become centered and rooted in yourself again. Whenever you move with others, they push you off centre. AND WHEN THE EVENING WAS COME, HE WAS THERE ALONE Nothing is said about his prayer in the Bible, just the word "prayer". Before God or before existence, you simply need to be vulnerable - that is prayer. You are no to say something. So when you go into prayer, don't start saying something. It will all be desires, demands and deep complaints to God. And prayer with complaints is no prayer, a prayer with deep gratitude is prayer. There is no need to say something, you can just be silent. Hence nothing is said about what Jesus did in his aloneness. It simply says "apart to pray". He went apart, he became alone. That is what prayer is, to be alone, where the other is not felt, where the other is not standing between you and existence. When God's breeze can pass througn you, unhindered. It is a cleansing experience. It revejunates your spirit. To be with God simply means to be alone. You can miss the point, if you start thinking about God, then you are not alone. If you start talking to God, then in imagination you have created the other. And then you God is a projection, it will be a projection of your father. A prayer is not to say something. It is to be silent, open, available. And there is no need to believe in God, because that too is a projection. The only need is to be alone, to be capable of being alone - and immediately you are with God. Whenever you are alone, you are with God.

POUND We spend twelve hundred generations developing so-called civilization to the point where it produces an expert who can offer us salvation from our superstitions, and all we end up with is another superstition! If it takes someone like Freud to save us from our neuroses, what’s it gonna take to save us from Freud?

Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: 'But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders. ...All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in 'Al- Mughni,' Imam al-Kisa'i in 'Al-Bada'i,' al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: 'As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.' On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.' ...We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson. ...Almighty Allah also says: 'O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.' Almighty Allah also says: 'So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith.' [World Islamic Front Statement, 23 February 1998]

Primary purposes of a mirror: (1) To help civilized men realize their imperfections, and, (2) To help the imperfect hide their imperfections.

Protecting the weak is the whole fucking basis for civilization. If you're not protecting the weak, you're not civilized. You're fucking animals.

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, [...] came to teach [the ancient inhabitants of Mexico] the benefits of settled agriculture and the skills necessary to build temples. Although this deity is frequently depicted as a serpent, he is more often shown in human form--the serpent being his symbol and his alter ego--and is usually described as "a tall bearded white man" ... "a mysterious person ... a white man with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes and a flowing beard." Indeed, [...] the attributes and life history of Quetzalcoatl are so human that it is not improbable that he may have been an actual historical character ... the memory of whose benefactions lingered after his death, and whose personality was eventually deified. The same could very well be said of Oannes--and just like Oannes at the head of the Apkallu (likewise depicted as prominently bearded) it seems that Quetzalcoatl traveled with his own brotherhood of sages and magicians. We learn that they arrived in Mexico "from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles," and that Quetzalcoatl was regarded as having been "the founder of cities, the framer of laws and the teacher of the calendar.

Sending out the Disciples Luke 10 1: AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY DISCIPLES AND HE SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE; WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME God is here and now. God is not something outside you, God is within you. God is the innermost core of existence. That is what Jesus means with: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near". God is not separate from the creation. He is one with the creation. When you understand this, your life becomes a prayer. When you understand this, you will understand that existence is a family. You will understand that life is togetherness. When we discover our authentic inner being, the kingdom of God, we understand that everybody is a messenger. We discover that the divine source expands, and we spread love to all with whom we interact. Jesus sent out his disciples two and two, so that they did not have to go alone. They went two and two in friendship, in love, in trust, so that they could help each other. THEREFORE SAID HE UNTO THEM, THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW The harvest is great, but there are not many laborers. People are deaf and blind. Somebody like Jesus comes, and you do not want to listen. It has always been like this. Rather than listening to Jesus, people get so jealous of Jesus, that they crucified him. Only very aware and understanding people will listen to Jesus. GO YOUR WAYS: BEHOLD I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES Jesus knows that he is sending his disciples into a dangerous world. People will not understand what they say, they do not want to listen, and they cling to their ideas and their tradition. Jesus knows that trust is to be attacked. He knows that love is to be attacked. CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SHOES, AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY AND INTO WHATSOVER HOUSE YE ENTER, FIRST SAY, PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE Jesus says that the love and the truth can create troubles for you. "Do not carry purse, do not wear shoes, go barefoot. Do not salute no man on the road". Be ordinary, be simple, be egoless. Jesus says bring peace to the house, because only in that peaceful milieu can the message can delievered. Create a spiritual vibration of peace, spread the feeling of peace, and if you are really feeling it, it will spread. When somebody comes to see you, settle within yourself, Become silent. And you will see a change in the man. We are joined together by our hearts. We exist as parts of one heart. That heart is God. If you create a feeling of peace, it will spread around you. If your gift of peace is accepted, it will be good. If it is not accepted, if you gift is rejcted, it is also good. The peace will still shower on you. HE THAT HEARETH YOU, HEARETH ME, AND HE THAT DESPISETH YOU, DESPISETH ME: AND HE THAT DESPISETH ME DESPISETH HIM THAT SENT ME Jesus says: If people hear you, they hear me. And if they hear me, they hear the one who has sent me.

Real civilisation means an education that extends to the whole of life, in contradistinction to that of school or college: it means an education that forms speech, forms manners, forms taste, forms ideals, and above all forms judgment.

Religious fundamentalism advocates homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, polygamy and many other primitive evils. Can you imagine, somebody telling you, your love for your dearly beloved is a sin! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, women are inferior to men, and are meant only serve the men! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, a man can have multiple wives, and yet be deemed civilized! Here that somebody is a fundamentalist – a theoretical pest from the stone-age, who somehow managed to survive even amidst all the rise of reasoning and intellect. Such a creature with no modern mental faculty whatsoever, knows nothing beyond the words of a book, written hundreds or thousands of years ago, when ignorance was the default mode of thinking in the society. It does not only believe every single word of a book to be literally true, but puts all its efforts to convince others to believe the same. This way, it would be an understatement to say, such is a worthless creature. In reality, such a creature can cause a catastrophic contagion in a society, especially if that society is already going through socio-political turmoil.

Sadism ... is a massive cultural fact that appeared precisely at the end of the eighteenth century and that constitutes one of the greatest conversions of the occidental imagination ... madness of desire, the insane delight of love and death in the limitless presumption of appetite.

Sex does not need to be primordial in order to be legitimate. Civilization doesn't just repress our original sexuality; it makes new kinds of sexuality. And new sexualities, including learned ones, might have as as much validity as ancient ones, if not more.

[Referring to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde] ... Will civilization never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not understand and which hold forth for them no temptation? Did Jesus suffer in vain?

Review history, visionaries advanced our civilization. Without them, we'd have been still in a barbaric and chaotic world. Thank you!!!

Rome fell silently to ruins. A New city rose in its place, and it was too erased by emptiness. Like phantom Giants, cities, kingdoms, and countries swiftly fell and disappeared into emptiness-- swallowed up in the black maw of the Infinite