Civilising Quotes & Sayings

But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest?
GWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest.
JACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?
GWENDOLEN (glibly): Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them. — Oscar Wilde

The burn is my girlfriend, failure is my ex. I'm married to the track and engaged to success. — Andre Bramble

But darling yesterday I was a different person, today I see you for what you are. — LeAnne Mechelle

Goldie was a believer in the imperial project, which is to say, in the civilising power of social progress. — Damon Galgut

Could the Burmese trade for themselves? Can they make machinery, ships, railways, roads? They are helpless without you. What would happen to the Burmese forests if the English were not here? They would be sold immediately to the Japanese, who would gut them and ruin them. Instead of which, in your hands, actually they are improved. And while your business men develop the resources of our country, your officials are civilising us, elevating us to their level, from pure public spirit. It is a magnificent record of self-sacrifice. — George Orwell

I couldn't make sense of things. But then I began the process of civilising myself and trying to become a decent human being. I'm still working on it. — Jimmy Nail

She's following me.
I can just feel her breathing shadow pressed up against my back. — Lisa M. Cronkhite

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it. — Chick Corea

There was a war between them, between love and the right thing to do, and it kept assaulting them, kept keeping them apart. — Keira D. Skye

Dominance in an adaptation to anarchy and it serves no purpose in a society that has undergone a civilising process or in an international system regulated by agreements and norms. Anything that deflates the concept of dominance is likely to drive down the frequency of fights between individuals and wars. — Steven Pinker

The fact is, the secret of happiness is the sense of proportion ... — Margaret Deland

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing. — John Charles Polanyi

It's hard sometimes if you think a character should look a certain way and you're being pushed to do it differently. I've had fights over that. That's why it's so important that you work with good people. — Uma Thurman

Well, it certainly is for men, because large numbers of men living together can easily become like wild animals. Men are brutes at heart, and without the civilising influence of women they quickly revert to savagery. — Jennifer Worth

Hitler is all the war-lords and witch-doctors in history rolled into one. Therefore, argues Wells, he is an absurdity, a ghost from the past, a creature doomed to disappear almost immediately. But unfortunately the equation of science with common sense does not really hold good. The aeroplane, which was looked forward to as a civilising influence but in practice has hardly been used except for dropping bombs, is the symbol of that fact. Modern Germany is far more scientific than England, and far more barbarous. Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The order, the planning, the State encouragement of science, the steel, the concrete, the aeroplanes, are all there, but all in the service of ideas appropriate to the Stone Age. — George Orwell

A great novel didn't involve tossing together words that didn't interconnect. In a great novel, each sentence mattered, each word had a meaning to the overall story arc. There was always forewarning to the plot twists and the different paths the novel would travel down, too. If a reader looked closely enough, they could always witness the warning signs. They could taste the heart of every word that bled on the page, and by the end, their palate would be satisfied. — Brittainy C. Cherry

We may need to focus here.' 'Right. Yes. OK. Turn around.' 'Are you going to throw something at me?' 'What? No, I'm getting out of bed. — Derek Landy

The women's gazes skewered him from opposite ends, making him feel like corn on the cob, sweating over the grill. — Sarah Sundin

When we want to talk, we can instead listen, and let our attentiveness to another's need to speak be our silent statement. — Bryant McGill

I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want. — Rashida Jones

The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room. — Blaise Pascal