Famous Quotes & Sayings

Pope Benedict XVI

Civilization is now under the tyranny of relativism.

Pope John Paul II

This is why moral uneasiness is destined to become even more acute. It is obvious that a fundamental defect, or rather a series of defects, indeed a defective machinery is at the root of contemporary economics and materialistic civilization, which does not allow the human family to break free from such radically unjust situations.

Pope John Paul II

Side by side with the miseries of underdevelopment...we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissable. This superdevelopment consists in an excessive availability of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups and makes people slaves of "possession" and immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the civilization of consumption, or "consumerism," which involves so much throwing away and waste.

Phillip Adams

Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the people. Opium suggests something soporific, numbing, dulling. Too often religion has been an aphrodisiac for horror, a Benzedrine for bestiality. At its best it has lifted spirits and raised spires. At its worst it has turned entire civilizations into cemeteries.

Primo Levi

Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.

Pliny the Elder

Our civilization depends largely on paper.

Pearl S. Buck

The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw: put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized.

Peter Thiel

The developing world can just do things that are extensive or horizontal, that basically copy. The developed world needs to do things that are intensive or vertical, where we take our civilization to the next level.

Terry Eagleton

For the liberal state to accommodate a diversity of beliefs while having few positive convictions is one of the more admirable achievements of civilization.

Terence McKenna

It seems to me far more likely that an advanced civilization would communicate inter dimensionally and telepathically.

Terence McKenna

If we were to place our power at the service of our imaginations rather than our primate politics we would create a civilization worthy of the name.

Terence McKenna

So the conclusion that I reach, visa vie the individual and civilization, is this: Culture is not our friend. Culture is not your friend. It's not my friend. It's a very uncomfortable set of accommodations that have been hammered out over time for the convenience of institutions.

Terence McKenna

The main thing going on in the 20th century is a dissolving of boundaries, all the boundaries that historical civilization put in place.

Terence McKenna

And what we're looking toward is a moment when the artificial language structures which bind us within the notion of ourselves are dissolved in the presence of the realization that we are a part of nature. And when that happens, the childhood of our species will pass away, and we will stand tremulously on the brink of really the first moment of coherent human civilization.

Terence McKenna

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Civilization depends on morality.

Shirin Ebadi

Human rights is the fruit of various civilizations.

Shirin Ebadi

Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization.

Shimon Peres

You know when civilization began? With the invention of the mirror.

Seth

In basic terms, civilization is dependent upon the spontaneity and fulfillment of the individual. Your civilization is in sad straits. Not because you are allowed spontaneity or fulfillment to individuals, but because you are denied it, and because your institutions are based upon that premise.

Seth

Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization.

Lewis Mumford

By putting business before every other manifestation of life, our mechanical and financial civilization has forgotten the chief business of life: namely, growth, reproduction, development. It pays infinite attention to the incubator-and it forgets the egg!

Leslie Caron

It's very difficult to marry into another civilization.

Leslie Caron

I know a lot of Americans in Paris who have married Frenchmen. They keep bringing up their experience, the clash of civilizations, the clash of personalities.

Leonard Nimoy

If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

Leonard Nimoy

I am a great believer in what we've been told time and time again by people like Joseph Campbell, "find your bliss." Find out what it is that touches you most deeply. Pursue it, learn about it, explore it, expand on it. Live with it and nurture it. Find your own way and make your own contribution. Find a way to make a contribution to this society because God knows we need contributions from the coming generation. This planet and this civilization is in need. I see it as a time of need.

Joseph de Maistre

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.

Kate Millett

When one group rules another, the relationship between the two is political. When such an arrangement is carried out over a long period of time it develops an ideology (feudalism, racism, etc.). All historical civilizations are patriarchies: their ideology is male supremacy.

Leo Tolstoy

But that's just the aim of civilization - to make everything a source of enjoyment.

Peter Fonda

Civilization has always been a bust.

Peter Scott

Every bride and groom in the history of civilization has gained weight after their wedding day. It is only a matter of time until archaeologists unearth a married caveman who's wearing a pair of old tux pants that were so tight he couldn't get the zipper closed.

Pete Hegseth

As the publisher of the 'Tory,' I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.