Civilization rests on the fact that most people do the right thing most of the time.
Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages.
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 understanding where where, where they come from, and where they are going.
It might be hard to remember this far back, but once upon a time, some of us hoped that public TV would develop into a smart, sophisticated, civilized alternative to commercial TV - not a cheap imitation of it.
[while narrator is on the phone] Tyler Durden: Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.
Gandhi: The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are.
A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.
What was the reason for invading Iraq' Was it a humanitarian crusade or an economic one' I would be inclined to say the latter. It was the same with the Civil War, because the landed gentry's money was being stolen by the king.
Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'
The limitation upon this mode of promoting peace lies in the fact that it consists in an appeal to the civilized side of man, while war is the product of forces proceeding from man's original savage nature.
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
The story of the decadence of the cathedral as a moral power, a spiritual energizer in civilization, is the sad but inevitable story of dogmatism. It is the story of the struggle of free thought with bigotry, religion making common cause with the wro...
There is every indication that we are to see new developments of the power of aggregated capital to serve civilization, and that the new developments will be made right here in America.
Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives.
I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.
Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.
Better to die in the pursuit of civilized values, we believed, than in a flight underground. We were offering a value system couched in the language of science.
You can't kill your way to success in a counter insurgency effort. You have to protect the people, get the civil military balance right, train the locals, and practice effective strategic communications.
I shall support the law, for the law gentlemen, is the firm and solid basis of civil society, the guardian of liberty, the protection of the innocent, the terror of the guilty, and the scourge of the wicked.
The American people do not want people thumbing their nose at the law. It undercuts the very fabric of our society and the system of civil justice and of criminal justice as well.
In justice to human society it may perhaps be said of almost all the polities and civil institutions in the world, however imperfect, that they have been founded in and carried on with very considerable wisdom.
