Civilisation Quotes

One person's barbarity is another person's civilisation.

— Mary Beard

“Civilisation is only savagery silver-gilt.”

— H. Rider Haggard

I believe we are put here to improve civilisation.

— Seamus Heaney

We did not realise how fragile our civilisation was.

— Friedrich August von Hayek

Civilisation and profits go hand in hand.

— Calvin Coolidge

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

— Voltaire

A culture without mythology is not really a civilisation.

— Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

“Civilisation and top hats bore me.”

— W.N.P. Barbellion

“Doesn’t civilisation mean keeping your temper when there is no reason for restraint?”

— Hanif Kureishi

What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens?

— Ann Leckie

“All civilisation has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.”

— Havelock Ellis

The progress and civilisation of the human race simply mean controlling this nature.

— Swami Vivekananda

This is by far the most serious crisis civilisation has ever faced.

— Al Gore

“Nature without civilisation is frightening; and civilisation without nature is even more frightening!”

— Mehmet Murat ildan

Scientific civilisation has destroyed the soul of the world.

— Alexis Carrel

Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.

— Aleister Crowley

Just carrying a ruler with you in your pocket should be forbidden, at least on a moral basis. The ruler is the…

— Friedensreich Hundertwasser

“In every civilized society, there is an established institution put in place to design laws that make people live civilized and having…

— Sunday Adelaja

Indian civilisation does not distinguish in terms of religion. We are an impossible achievement in the world and I'm very proud to…

— Shahrukh Khan

Myths are part of our DNA. We're a civilisation with a continuous culture. The effort to modernize it keeps it alive. Readers…

— Amish Tripathi

“Civilisation isn't a thing that you build and then there it is, you have it forever. It needs to be built constantly,…

— Steven Galloway

[The Koran is one of] the most stubborn enemies of Civilisation, Liberty, and the Truth which the world has yet known.

— William Muir

There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we…

— Florence Nightingale

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?

— Emile Zola

As we take stock on the morrow of victory, we shall find that nothing of real value to the human race has…

— Horatio Bottomley

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source…

— Bertrand Russell

“The only true solutions to complex systemic problems are piecemeal, multi-pronged answers, and they will vary wildly from forest to desert, from…

— John Bierce

There are messages about civilisations and we are trying to be true to history as much as possible. We wanted all this…

— Mel Gibson

Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and…

— Roy Baumeister

Western civilisation, the élitists all understood, is built upon discrimination: a culture that does not rest on discrimination, that penalises people who…

— Richard Davenport-Hines

The collapse of the world's banking system and the impending disaster of accelerating climate change are not separate phenomena. They are simply…

— Jonathon Porritt

In times of prosperity we are apt to forget God; we imagine it does not matter whether we recognise Him or not.…

— Oswald Chambers

After man there would be the mighty beetle civilisation, the bodies of whose members the cream of the Great Race would seize…

— H. P. Lovecraft

It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its…

— Anonymous

It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within…

— Anonymous

There exists in the world today, and has existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might…

— Manly Hall

“I am not a simpleton', he said, 'nor am I a childish old man. I dislike childishness and all such rubbish. I…

— Vita Sackville-West

In the circle where I was raised, I knew of no one knowledgeable in the visual arts, no one who regularly attended…

— Shirley Hazzard

“What happened? It took Gibbon six volumes to describe the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, so I shan’t embark on…

— Kenneth Clark

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilisation, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes…

— Ray Bradbury