Popular quotes about Civilized! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
Though we love to think that we are civilized & developed than that of people lived centuries ago. In reality, the world is still run through the principle of 'Might is right'. Whoever - government or individual - has more power & money is dominating and, in many cases, oppressing people who are financially & politically weaker.
Abu Sufyan ibn HarbI was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received, and heard him muse incredulously: "An old-fashioned naval battle. A war between two civilized nations, perhaps with even a declaration of war, and later a peace conference. Wow." No hostages, no nukes, no ideologies, no religious fanaticism; just a fair-and-square war over national interests - hard to believe, in this day and age.
William SafireWhen man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
Ayn RandThere is very little in civilized life that demands everything you got intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Driving is living. It's aggressive instead of passive living.
Janet GuthrieI fireballed him as he was seeking out treasure after we wiped out a band of orcs, playing rock-paper-scissors with each orc to determine who would prevail in combat. This is a lot more exciting than it sounds. It's quite civilized, and a little weird. You go running after someone through the woods, catch up with him, bare your teeth, and sit down to play a little roshambo.
Cory DoctorowI do consider the human capacity for violence is the central issue of the social contract. In boxing we have a peculiarly civilized form, in that boxers don't screech and holler. They don't use weapons. All of this seems to me quite amazing, because it is so disciplined, so controlled. It's ritualized, but absolutely genuine. And the cultural structure built around that ritual is absolutely fascinating to me. And it seems to me that boxing is one of those structures that is designed to promote harmony. I think that it is a stove that contains that fire in us and makes it safe and useful.
Katherine DunnIt's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art.
Henry Louis GatesHerman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.
Edward DahlbergI think dating courtesies are common courtesies that should be practiced in most all civilized encounters. I pine for the days of good, old-fashioned manners.
Karen Marie MoningCivilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.
Sigmund FreudTexas is not a civilized place. Texans shoot one another a lot. They also knife, razor, and stomp one another to death with some frequency. And they fight in bars all the time.
Molly IvinsCivilized people - Muslims, Christians and Jews - all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.
John AshcroftPANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
Ambrose BierceThe civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.
Bergen EvansI feel we all have the obligation, myself. I want to live in a more humane, civilized society, and I feel like the only way we're going to achieve that is if we all take it upon ourselves. I just wish we could be a more caring society. I feel like we're social Darwinists who believe that everyone has to make it on their own. But the reality is that we all don't start out on the same footing.
Natalie MerchantYou do not need to be an expert, or even particularly interested in wine, in order to enjoy drinking it. But tasting is not the same as drinking. Drinking pleases, mellows, loosens the tongue and inhibitions; drinking wine with food is healthy and natural; drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life's most civilized pleasures.
Michael BroadbentIf one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
Oscar WildeNow what happens?" asked the man in black. "We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone." "You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?
William GoldmanBut still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.
John BoyneBut would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration; and we shall soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.
David Humecasino owners spoke more loudly than any of the other kings of industry to defend their contribution to society. They could speak more loudly because theirs was the purest activity of civilized man. They had transcended the need for a product. They could maintain and advance life with machines that made nothing but money.
Jane RuleFrom my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.
Henry David ThoreauWe are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.
Pat BarkerWine has been with us since the beginning of civilization. It is the temperate, civilized, sacred, romantic mealtime beverage recommended in the Bible. Wine has been praised for centuries by statesmen, philosophers, poets, and scholars. Wine in moderation is an integral part of our culture, heritage and gracious way of life.
Robert MondaviThe rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world.
Friedrich SchillerWe may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.
Herman MelvilleI am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
Woodrow WilsonThe very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately institute, in advance of the happening of various contingencies and emergencies of life, devices for detecting their approach and registering their nature, for warding off what is unfavorable or at least for protecting ourselves from its full impact.
Dale Jamieson[E]ncouraging the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab Muslim world, which is the heart of the global terrorist threat - to adopt democratic ways and to shine the light of liberty into its culture of medieval darkness is a pragmatic necessity for the future security of the civilized world. That is the reality behind the President's address. Only people in serious denial can be blind to this fact. Only liberals.
David HorowitzHow many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilized nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy!
Charles DickensKnowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William SafireNo domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it.
Isak DinesenPolicemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized weโve become.
D. Todd ChristoffersonLoneliness is a hard thing to handle. I feel it, sometimes. When I do, I want it to end. Sometimes, when you're near someone, when you touch them on some level that is deeper than the uselessly structured formality of casual civilized interaction, there's a sense of satisfaction in it. Or at least, there is for me. It doesn't have to be someone particularly nice. You don't have to like them. You don't even have to want to work with them. You might even want to punch them in the nose. Sometimes just making that connection is its own experience, its own reward.
Jim ButcherI do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute a state. I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe simultaneous reactions elicited all over the world by the reading of newspaper dispatches about the same events create, as it were, a common mental pulse beat for the whole of civilized mankind.
Christian Lous LangeTaxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure.
Mark SkousenA nation to be great ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeHow dangerous it is rashly to adopt the Mosaical institutions [Old Testament teachings of eye for an eye]. Laws might have been proper for a tribe of ardent barbarians wandering through the sands of Arabia which are wholly unfit for an enlightened people of civilized and gentle manners.
Gerald HeaneyWalls, towns, rules, and day-to-day life doesn't make us civilized ... That's organization and ritual. Civilization lives in our hearts and heads or it doesn't exist at all.
Jonathan MaberryThe Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend, one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
William O. DouglasOur freedom is under attack. Our economy is under water. The leading democrat is under investigation. And America is under the gun to lead the free world to protect our civilized way of life.
Jeb BushAnd of course you are mad, if by a madman we mean a mind that questions and rejects every civilized norm.
Stephen Fry