453 quotes found
“Not until the beginning of the 20th century did Europe's urban populations finally become self-sustaining: before then, constant immigration of healthy peasants from the countryside was necessary t...”
“Twelve thousand years ago, everybody on earth was a hunter-gatherer; now almost all of us are farmers or else are fed by farmers. The spread of farming from those few sites of origin usually did no...”
“Though we became experimental creatures of our own devising, its important to bear in mind that we had no inkling of this process, let alone its consequences, until only the last six or seven of ou...”
“Thanks to this availability of suitable wild mammals and plants, early peoples of the Fertile Crescent could quickly assemble a potent and balanced biological package for intensive food production....”
“Looking back upon millennia of history, it appears clear that no race or culture has monopoly on wartime cruelty. The veneer of civilization seems to be exceedingly thin one that can be easily str...”
“I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can be kept up only by shutting ones eyes to the overwhelming multitude of facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each sp...”
“Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its o...”
“We are laying the foundation for some new, monstrous civilization. Only now do I realize what price was paid for building the ancient civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids, the temples and Greek sta...”
“Initial or mutual trust (the type of trust that makes us, irrationally, trust strangers) then enabled the complex planning that allowed man to transition from a tribe of hunter-gatherers whose fate...”
“Civilization was like a mad dash that lasted fie thousand years. Progress begot more progress; countless miracles gave birth to more miracles; humankind seemed to possess the power of gods; but in ...”
“We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.”
“We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and ...”
“We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls.”
“I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," 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...”
“In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civiliz...”
“Religious fundamentalism advocates homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, polygamy and many other primitive evils. Can you imagine, somebody telling you, your love for your dearly beloved is a sin! Can ...”
“If this is called civilization, then I am afraid humanity is no more civilized than the Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him.”
“What I tell you three times is true. What I tell you three million times is civilization.”
“Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very es...”
