Civilization Is A Thin Quotes & Sayings

Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism.
[Libraries on the Front Lines, ALA interview 2011] — Neil Gaiman

The veneer of civilization is exceedingly thin — Karin Tansek

Protectionism is the institutionalization of economic failure. — Edward Heath

He despised violence. He believed he was smarter than that, better than that. A civilized man. After seeing Martin Pink in the flesh again - he knew just how thin the veneer of civilization was. — Josh Lanyon

Why read? Because books are precious guides to our humanity - civilization's backbone - that tenuous ridgeline that allows us to climb above the jungle and see what the horizon has to offer. Thus they represent the yearning to go beyond, to explore. Yet they are also human-sized. And made of paper and ink, and thus they come from the earth. Their physicality is what makes them immensely human. And they contain the flesh-and-bone thoughts of one person capturing one blink of time, now made immortal in the bound pages carried by your own hands and touched by your own eyes. How can such fragile and thin paper and spidery veins of ink be our most precious treasure, binding together the entire hope and legacy and language of a civilization - of our existence. We touch the book and turn the page, and thus we are bound to our destiny. — Carew Papritz

At first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each — Lewis Carroll

I supposed the Red Guards had enjoyed themselves. Is it not true that we all possess some destructive tendencies in our nature? The veneer of civilization is very thin. Underneath lurks the animal in each of us. If I were young and had had a working class background, if I had been brought up to worship Mao and taught to believe him infalliable, would I not have behaved exactly as the Red Guards had done?
~79 — Nien Cheng

Beirut's enduring lesson for me was how thin is the veneer of civilization, how easily the ties that bind can unravel, how quickly a society that was known for generations as the Switzerland of the Middle East can break apart into a world of strangers. I have never looked at the world the same since I left Beirut. It was like catching a glimpse of the underside of a rock or the mess of wires and chips that are hidden inside a computer. Steven — Thomas L. Friedman

Voluntary Quicksand
I read the Chronicle this morning
as if I were stepping into voluntary
quicksand
and watched the news go over my shoes
with forty-four more days of spring.
Kent State
America
May 7, 1970 — Richard Brautigan

Love is overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate — Al Pacino

Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness. — Werner Herzog

Men have always wanted to have sex with as many fertile young women as possible. It's part of a man's basic programming. That hasn't changed. Civilization is nothing more than an artificial and very thin veneer hiding our deep-seated primitive urges. — Oliver Markus

The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface . — Aldous Huxley

Civilization is but a thin veneer stretched across the passions of the human heart. And civilization doesn't just happen; we have to make it happen. — Bill Moyers

He's an excellent listener. Most cats are. Except Siameses, the chatty little bastards. I — Anthony Marra

If you want to find Buddha nature, love someone and care for them. — Dainin Katagiri

Politics is not about justice. It's about the settling of personal vendettas under a thin veneer of civilization. All politics is personal. — Cinda Williams Chima

During the whole of that frozen, dark transit through the glittering, howling autumnal moorlands of the trans-Neptunian wastes, as the ice road hung thin and ragged as funeral curtains beyond the portholes, I had been keeping studiously to myself within the confines of our slim vessel as it passed through that singularly lonesome expanse of darkness and, whilst the blue and ghostly shades of morning at the edge of civilization roused the passengers, drew within site of the melancholy face of Pluto. — Catherynne M Valente

The contradictions were apparent to Makhaya, and perhaps there was no greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told in the name of Jesus Christ. It seemed to Makhaya far preferable for Africa if it did without Christianity and Christian double-talk, fat priests, golden images, and looked around at all the thin naked old men who sat under trees weaving baskets with shaking hands. People could do without religions and Gods who died for the sins of the world and thereby left men without any feeling of self-responsibility for the crimes they committed. This seemed to Makhaya the greatest irony of Christianity. It meant that a white man could forever go on slaughtering black men simply because Jesus Christ would save him from his sins. Africa could do without a religion like that. 135 — Bessie Head

I knew, of course, that I should be well paid for my services, but I would gladly have accepted half the sum I expected if I could have had it that night, for our little treasury was wholly exhausted, and we had not sixpence to purchase a breakfast for the following day. When the great hall door shut upon me, and I found myself on the pavement, with all the luxury and splendour on one side, and I and my desolation on the other, the contrast struck me cruelly, for I too, had been rich, and dwelt in illuminated palaces, and had a train of liveried servants at my command, and sweet music had echoed through my halls. I felt desperate, and drawing my hat over my eyes I began pacing the square, forming wild plans for the relief or escape from my misery. ("The Italian's Story") — Catherine Crowe

If I catch one of my fans saying something improper, a gay slur or any derogatory term, I instantly tweet directly at them and say, 'This isn't how we do it.' — Drake Bell

Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought. — William Shakespeare