453 quotes found
“There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”
“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”
“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”
“It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.”
“Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.”
“If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.”
“Civilization is a race between disaster and education.”
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”
“Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”
“All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as ...”
“But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.”
“We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.”
“It's funny how people think that they have "a right to life". Now isn't that the biggest load you ever heard? You don't have a right to shit your pants on Sunday. Let's take it back to the jungle. ...”
“Without the library, you have no civilization.”
“People have separated from each other with walls of concrete that blocked the roads to connection and love. and Nature has been defeated in the name of development.”
“It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct....”
“We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.”
“[Referring to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde] ... Will civilization never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not understand and which hold forth for them no...”
“Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill in the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm i...”
“The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish.”
