Quotes & Sayings About Civilized Behavior

Don't overlook the significance of your smallest opportunities for civilized behavior throughout each day. The future has no bigger moments than we experience right now. The world changes for the better with every act of kindness, and for the worse with every act of cruelty. The future is nothing grander than the very next moment, and it arrives solely from the present. — Bo Lozoff

Some instincts are best left uncivilized — Agona Apell

In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces. — W. Somerset Maugham

It's not unreal to me yet, though it might get that way soon. It still feels very real. And not even horrible
the dead are just the dead. I am convinced that the living people they once were would have been proud of their protective bodies hoodwinking their murderers to save someone else. [..]
But it's not civilized. There is something indecent about it
really foully indecent. The civilized Rose-person in me, who still seems to exist beneath the layers of filth, knows this. [..]
I have become so indifferent about the dead. — Elizabeth Wein

You don't understand. Speaking, talking
language, that is
represents the most orderly, civilized, and rational expression of human nature. All this foul-mouthed cussing is a gap where you can't think of anything to say. It's the opposite of being rational and ordered. The very opposite. It wants to unpick civilized behavior, rationality, and order. — Graham Joyce

She silently chanted the rules of the civilized: Thou shalt not make love on a balcony even if it's thirty-something stories up because someone might see you. Thou shalt not make love with a dinosaur no matter how sexy he is. Thou shalt not make love on a balcony when a werewolf is in the room, even if said werewolf is asleep. And last but not least, thou shalt not make love outside when it's cold because goose bumps are never attractive. — Nina Bangs

Criticism is a profession which allows one a certain license to be vicious outside the bounds of normal civilized behavior. — Douglas Preston

Many bad things were done under the Evil Empire" she said. "The best we can do now is undo them. Will you assist in this endeavor?"
"In every way that I can" said Nutt.
"I would like you to teach them civilized behavior," said Ladyship coldly.
He appeared to consider this. "Yes, of course, I think, that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"
There was a brief outburst of laughter from Vetinari, who immediately cupped his hand over his mouth. "Oh I do beg your pardon," he said. — Terry Pratchett

Feeling the inevitable claim of the this desert, he experienced a desire to throw off his civilized costume, hurl himself upon Josephina, either succumb, or return to Guadalajara, where men could only complain of having too many buttons to button or unbutton... — Warren Eyster

The measure of civilized behavior is compassion. — Paul Theroux

In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we're civilized people, we publicly criticize that, and don't belong to those groups or don't associate with those people. — Rand Paul

We will not make inroads into the gun-violence problem until we acknowledge the underlying causes of youth behavior today, compared to yesterday ... we must come to the realization that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. It's morality that is society's first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. — Walter E. Williams

The human race has the capacity to render itself extinct unless alternatives are found to the patterns of intraspecific warfare that have dominated civilized history. Ours has long been a predatory species. Living, for humans, depends upon the ability to kill as clearly as it does for lions or wolves. But lions and wolves, like almost all predatory species, normally limit their killing to prey animals, and they are equipped with elaborate ritual precautions to prevent the destruction of their own kind. Humans appear to be unique among predators in their enthusiasm to destroy members of their own species. Perhaps this unusual behavior can be attributed to some genetic deficiency which may lead humans ultimately to join the rest of nature's failures in the biological graveyard of extinction. Or perhaps our willingness to kill ourselves, like so many of our other problems, is something we have devised by misusing our enlarged brains. — Joseph W. Meeker

Civilized beings regard the act of intercourse as the highest expression of romantic love. One need only observe the behavior of animals, however, to realize that the act is often a form of violence. — Fiona Paul

If this is called civilization, then I am afraid humanity is no more civilized than the Tyrannosaurus Rex. — Abhijit Naskar

He'd always prided himself on being more civilized than his brothers, but so much for that; he was becoming aroused in a damned sewer. — Larissa Ione

He had no bag, which was strange. But overall it was vaguely reassuring to have such a man on board, especially after he had proved himself civilized and not in any way threatening. Threatening behavior from a man that size would have been unseemly. Good manners from a man that size were charming. — Lee Child

We should not allow ourselves to be deceived by our outward show of 'civilized' manners and 'cultured' social behavior into believing that self-concern, desirous attachment, aversion, and indifference are steadily losing their hold over us. — Stephen Batchelor

Whamming someone smaller than oneself in order to teach that person civilized behavior is not within Miss Manners' concept of propriety, much less logic. — Judith Martin

Once I told him I thought beating your son was a most uncivilized method of getting your own way. He said I'd about as much sense as the post I was standing next to, if as much. He said respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior, and until I learned that, I'd better get used to looking at my toes while one of my barbaric elders thrashed my arse off. — Diana Gabaldon

Policemen 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 we've become. — D. Todd Christofferson

... the repression of primitive, violent impulses in favor of civilized behavior was a control mechanism for the more shrewdly aggressive dominators who successfully channeled *their* primitive, violent impulses into a socially acceptable form known as 'ruthlessness,' while monopolizing the right to use outright violence as a last resort for maintaining an otherwise indefensible accumulation of power and wealth. — R.U. Sirius

respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior, — Diana Gabaldon

No matter how civilized we are and how much society has curbed violent behavior. Human beings still have the same genes they had 10,000 years ago. Our bodies are designed to have a certain amount of physical stress and violence in them. We're designed to run from jaguars and fight to defend our territory. — Joe Rogan

It seems to me that we have to draw the line in sibling rivalry whenever rivalry goes out of bounds into destructive behavior of aphysical or verbal kind. The principle needs to be this: Whatever the reasons for your feelings you will have to find civilized solutions. — Selma Fraiberg

When 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 Rand

Political opposition ... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence. — Arthur Miller

Becoming more flexible, open-minded, having a capacity to deal with change is a good thing. But it is far from the whole story. Grandparents, in the absence of the social institutions that once demanded civilized behavior, have their work cut out for them. Our grandchildren are hungry for our love and approval, but also for standards being set. — Eda LeShan

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

We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior. — Friedrich Durrenmatt

As a society we've progressed to a point where it is unacceptable behavior to knock someone down who is acting a fool. I teach my children to use their words when faced with a conflict. That's what civilized people do. All that is fine and good except for one small thing; we've enabled the fools ...
... What if people could expect a measure of instant justice when they were out of order? The acts of thoughtlessness would decline exponentially. If you give people license to be fools then you are left to deal with fools. However, if you put fools on notice then they'll be forced to snap to attention and act right or suffer the consequences. Think of it as an adult spanking. — Aaron Blaylock