Civilization is but a thin veneer stretched across the…

“We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretense of understanding. We paper over the voids of our comprehension with science and…

— Mark Lawrence

Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.

— Aristotle

There is certainly a longstanding idea within western culture that civilization is only a thin veneer. As soon as something happens, say a war…

— Rutger Bregman

I believe with all my heart that civilization has produced nothing finer than a man or woman who thinks and practices true tolerance.

— Frank Knox

Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.

— John Adams

At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed is 'community' - the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume…

— Martin Luther King, Jr

“Civilization, her mother had told her since she was small, was a series of agreements about what was good for everyone, enforced by law.…

— Maile Meloy

Heterosexual marriage is the heart of our civilization.

— Newt Gingrich

Left to our own devices and passions, we human beings have a hard time seeing beyond what is immediately in front of us.

— Gene Robinson

“civilization doesn’t separate us from nature, Ted. Civilization protects us from nature. Because”

— Michael Crichton

“There is no such thing as a world without combat, no civilization which doesn't start off by laying down the rules for relations between…

— Henning Mankell

“The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if…

— Ann Leckie

The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“[L]uxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if…

— Anne Leckie