Changing Civilization Quotes & Sayings

A singular confusion exists about the notions of 'culture' and 'civilization'.
Culture began with the 'prologue in heaven.' With its religion, art, ethics, and philosophy, it will always be dealing with man's relation to that heaven from whence he came. Everything within culture means a confirmation or a rejection, a doubt or a reminiscence of the heavenly origin of man. Culture is characterized by this enigma and goes on through all time with the steady striving to solve it.
On the other hand, civilization is a continuation of the zoological, one-dimensional life, the material exchange between man and nature. This aspect of life differs from other animals' lives, but only in its degree, level, and organization. Here, one does not find man embarrassed by evangelical, Hamletian, or Karamasovian problems. The anonymous member of society functions here only by adopting the goods nature and changing the world by his work according to his needs. — Alija Izetbegovic

Certain portions of the earth, escaping utter destruction, become the seedbeds for replenishing the human race, and so it happens that on a world that is not young there are young populations having no culture, whose traditions were swept away in a debacle; they wander over the earth and gradually put aside the roughness of a nomadic existence and by natural inclunation submit to communities and associations; their mode of living is at first simple, knowking no guile and strange to cunning, called in its early stage the Golden Age. [16] The more these populations progress in civilization and employment of the arts, the more easily does the spirit of rivalry creep in, at first commendable but imperceptibly changing to envy; this, then, is responsible for all the tribulations that the race suffers in subsequent ages. So much for the vicissitudes that civilizations experience, of perishing and arising again, as the world goes on unchanged.
[Chapter X - 15,16] — Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius

What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted — Lin Yutang

It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms. — Arthur Keith

Jesus incarnated when our Western civilization was changing from being predominantly baby soul to predominantly young. We are now in a similar transition, from young to mature. — Shepherd Hoodwin

So, basically, my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals, and within reason, I will do what I can to avoid it, but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I'm polluted if somehow some bit of milk or cheese or something passes my lips. — Peter Singer

Civilization never stands still; if in one country it is falling back, in another it is changing, evolving, becoming more complicated, bringing fresh experience to body and mind, breeding new desires, and exploiting Nature's cupboard for their satisfaction. — Arthur Keith

Having confidence in yourself breaks the chain of doubt — Marcelle Hinkson

, civilization is an ever-changing tacit agreement, culturally inherited, not chosen at birth. Civilization is the invention of man, my big friend. It is a means of ensuring order and structure; it is man's attempt to expunge all and every act of randomness from daily life. The ultimate goal of civilization is determinism, the complete absence of freewill. If everyone adhered to every rule, every demand, every decree of civilization, there would be no accidents, no arguments, no crime! Man would move through his life smoothly, like a well-oiled cog in a grandfather clock. — Peter Jelen

Civilization has taught man how to live in dense crowds, and by that very fact those crowds are likely ultimately to constitute a majority of the world's population. Already there are many who prefer this crowded life, but there are others who do not, and these will gradually be eliminated. Life in the crowded conditions of cities has many unattractive features, but in the long run these may be overcome, not so much by altering them, but simply by changing the human race into liking them. — Charles Galton Darwin

A pistol ain't good for nothin' but killing other human beings, man. — George Pelecanos

We could not be fulfilled if we weren't inauthentic some of the time - inauthentic, that is, in relation to such things as our passing desires to throttle our children, poison our spouse, or end our marriage over a dispute about changing a lightbulb. — Alain De Botton

If [hand-drawn animation] is a dying craft, we can't do anything about it. Civilization moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era. — Hayao Miyazaki

[In response to atrocities against Armenians] the British government issued a joint memo with France and Russia on 24 May 1915. The first draft, proposed by Russia, contained the phrase "crimes against Christianity and civilization," but France and Britain feared this would offend their own colonial Muslim populations and succeeded in changing the phrase to "crimes against humanity." This paved the way for the concept to assume its place after the war as one of the most important categories in international law. — Taner Akcam

Don't be cocky, 'Pride cometh before the fall — Sherrilyn Kenyon

All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing. — David Baldacci

My voice comes from faraway, therefore it is faint and, also, because it is a woman's voice, it is trembling of the emotion imposed by your presence, as much as of the honour of being listen to. My voice comes from faraway, but it hopes when you will listen to it that it will resound in your hearts.
My voice comes from the midst of this nation, which having been placed on the threshold of Europe, will have loved and admired France and like France, and often through it, she would have strived for Freedom, vowed to have accomplished a splendid destiny and face bravely the changing mood of Fortune.

You may well recognise in these qualities Romania, land of suffering, land of enlightenment and of valour placed across the promontory against the dredge of Asian invasions and like a beacon being mightily conscious of defending the civilization, which gave it its people and its laws. - Paris, 27th April 1925; addressing the League of Nations (translated Constantin Roman — Elena Vacarescu

The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. — Jawaharlal Nehru

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally ... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past. — Al Gore

And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own - the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms! — E. M. Forster

Human civilization has been changing the Earth's environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts. — Jamais Cascio

Growing up sometimes forces us to confront the distance between our childhood hope and the truth. — Sara Shandler

A civilization is complicated, in the first place, because it is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing in the passage of time, until it has perished. — Carroll Quigley

Civilization has provided no peace, no spectacle, no assurance to the human heart which can transcend the simple, ever-changing, matchless beauty and peace of the natural world — Harvey Broome

I'm opposed to a lot of the time that we as a civilization have come to spend looking at screens. For my money, life is much delicious damn near everyplace but inside that screen. — Nick Offerman

They're on a cusp; a highly heterogeneous but highly connected
and stressedly connected
civilization. I'm not sure that one approach could encompass the needs of their different systems. The particular stage of communication they're at, combining rapidity and selectivity, usually with something added to the signal and almost always with something missed out, means that what passes for truth often has to travel at the speed of failing memories, changing attitudes, and new generations. Even when this form of handicap is recognized all they ever try to do, as a rule, is codify it, tidy it up. Their attempts of filter become part of the noise, and they seem unable to bring any more thought to bear on the matter than that which leads them to try and simplify what can only be understood by coming to terms with its complexity. — Iain M. Banks

The engineered built environments or domesticated landscapes of certain Amazonian peoples were as impressive as any Egyptian pyramid, Mesopotamian city, or Chinese terrace-irrigiation system. In the Amazon, the transformation was driven by social demands: social group formation, domestic routines, territoriality, local environmental knowledge, gifting, and competitive feasting. — Clark L. Erickson

Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing. — Fred Reed

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

Having words opened up a world of possibilities for Martha. — Susan Meddaugh