Early Civilizations Quotes & Sayings

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

I really love working. It makes me feel like an even better person when I work. I function much better if I have a really rigid schedule. When I'm left to my own devices, I can just be all over the place. — Melanie Griffith

There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it. — Edith Wharton

All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. — Kenneth Clark

BE QUIET!! ... What do you want ... ? I was in the middle of saying something nice ... — Tite Kubo

Our northern brethren buried their dead, were skilled toolmakers, kept fires going, and took care of the infirm just like early humans. The fossil record shows survival into adulthood of individuals afflicted with dwarfism, paralysis of the limbs, or the inability to chew. Going by exotic names such as Shanidar I, Romito 2, the Windover Boy, and the Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, our ancestors supported individuals who contributed little to society. Survival of the weak, the handicapped, the mentally retarded, and others who posed a burden is seen by paleontologists as a milestone in the evolution of compassion. This communitarian heritage is crucial in relation to this book's theme, since it suggests that morality predates current civilizations and religions by at least a hundred millennia. — Frans De Waal

Was there ever an aerial war in our distant past, maybe 2,000 years ago? An aerial war? Yes. There are certain understandings, what you would call treaties between various visiting civilizations, specifying how they are to conduct themselves in contact with humans. Those that did not have the best intentions for Earth applied certain arrangements and pressures to certain civilizations. These aspirations were restrained to create a reasonably safe and neutral area of space that includes Earth and many other planets. This might be what you call aerial warfare. That is probably it. The reference comes from very old writings in India and a description of ships in the sky, fighting. I understand the Hindu texts. They give insights into the background of a number of civilizations that have come to Earth. These Indian texts have many clear insights and provide early information on contact with humans. — J. Steven Reichmuth

When you forgive somebody else you accept the responsibility for your own future. — Zig Ziglar

By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with it a flourishing civilization and a glorious golden age.
Given how far back it stretches in time, the history of the region
and even of Iraq itself
is too big a canvas for me to paint. Instead, what I hope to do in this book is take on the nonetheless ambitious task of sharing with you a remarkable story; one of an age in which great geniuses pushed the frontiers of knowledge to such an extent that their work shaped civilizations to this day. — Jim Al-Khalili

Early SETI efforts were marked by overly optimistic estimates of the probable number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest and to take a more down-to-earth view. Earth may be more special, and intelligence much rarer, in the universe than previously thought.

Skeptical Inquirer Volume 30.3, May / June 2006 — Peter Schenkel

Here and there amidst the wreckage, she found advanced devices that more or less still functioned. With one exception, she'd revealed these to Johanna and then to Woodcarver, and - after it was founded - to the Executive Council. Ravna had kept her mouth shut about the surveillance suite; she and the Children were trapped on a world of medieval strangers.

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So at the beginning Ravna had kept some secrets. It was now years too late to reveal this one. In the Beyond, "cameras" were more than what early tech civilizations imagined. Cameras could be a coat of paint, or critters that looked like insects, or even a bacterial infection. Delivery of the information to the observer could be even stranger, a diffuse cloud of perturbations - acoustic, visual, thermal - that took enormous processing to reconstruct. — Vernor Vinge

The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way. — Eric Hoffer