Civilizations are the summer noise of insects between two…

We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.

— Paul Valery

“Their history wasn’t so far off the mean track, they were going through what a thousand other civilizations had gone through, and no doubt…

— Iain M. Banks

I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven…

— Naguib Mahfouz

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature. They can't help it.

— Carl Sagan

I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills.

— Arnold J. Toynbee

“Future civilizations - better civilizations than this one - are going to judge all men by the extent to which they've been artists. You…

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Isolationists believed that the ancient civilizations all developed independent of one another. Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Egypt—all crossed a threshold into civilization about…

— Robert Doherty

Civilizations proceed from the heart rather than from the head.

— Mark Twain

Words outlive people, institutions, civilizations. Words spur images, associations, memories, inspirations and synapse pulsations. Words send off physical resonations of thought into the nethersphere.…

— Inga Muscio

Civilizations evolve over time, and most scholars of civilization, including people like Carol Quigley, argue that they go through periods of warring states, and…

— Samuel P. Huntington

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended - civilizations are built up - excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes…

— C. S. Lewis

All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds…

— Gustave Le Bon

Each succeeding civilization forgets its predecessor. Civilizations are ghouls.

— Gutzon Borglum

In all civilizations we've studied, all cultures that we know of across the Earth and across time have invested some kind of attempt to…

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

Technological civilizations don't last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And…

— Jack McDevitt