In every civilization, however generally prosaic, however addicted to the short-time point of view on human affairs, there are always certain alien spirits who, while outwardly conforming to the requirements of the civilization around them, still keep a disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things, irrespective of any practical end. They have an intellectual curiosity, sometimes touched with emotion, concerning the august order of nature; they are impressed by the contemplation of it, and like to know as much about it as they can, even in circumstances where its operation is ever so manifestly unfavourable to their best hopes and wishes.
quote by Albert Jay Nock

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Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life blood of real civilization.
G.M. Trevelyan in English Social History (1942)

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If aliens from outer space ever come and we show them our civilization and they make fun of it, we should say we were just kidding, that this isn't really our civilization, but a gag we hoped they would like. Then we tell them to come back in twenty years to see our REAL civilization. After that, we start a crash program of coming up with an impressive new civilization. Either that, or just shoot down the aliens as they're waving good-bye.
Jack Handey in Deep Thoughts

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal civilization of the world.
quote by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

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Today, there are too many points of view of equal value and prestige, each showing the relativity of the other, to permit us to take any one position and to regard it as impregnable and absolute. Only this socially disorganized intellectual situation makes possible the insight, hidden until now by a generally stable social structure and the practicability of certain traditional norms, that every point of view is particular to a social situation.
quote by Karl Mannheim

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Confessions Of An Incorrigible Person
I am a religious fanatic, because I do not respect any religion other than my own – Humanism.
I am not cosmopolitan, because I do not respect any community other than my own – Humanity.
I do not like any language other than my own – the language of unity, understanding and friendship.
I give a damn to any culture other than my own – Human Culture.
There is only one civilization I respect, the ancient civilization I am a part of – World Civilization.
I do not have time for anybody other than my own family – The World Fraternity.
Agreed, all these characteristics that I have are extremely condemnable. But sorry, I will not change. I am incorrigible.
High Civilization
Cryin' in the streets
They run for their lives
How can you lead them to heaven
They don't realize
Children of the night
How far can we fall
That which we say is forever
Ain't no time at all
Father and the son
Not too young to be old
Reach out for each other when
The world goes cold
Feel so good to be home
Are you ready for
(CHORUS)
My high civilization
Are you ready for
My high civilization
Are you ready for
My high civilization
Civilization
Everything for us to see
The ultimate society
Keeper of the sword
You fight for your rights
How can you live for the hour
When there's no yesterday
Dyin' in the streets
Your number your name
All that which keeps us together
Is bringing us the pain
Thunder of the guns
Comes the criminal mind
Working for the power of
The evil eye
We are never alone
Uncivilized
(CHORUS)
New York
song performed by by Bee Gees from High Civilization

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
What Shall I Bring To Offer You?
Civilization,
what shall i bring as an offering to you?
One that does not bore you
with the passage of time
One that makes your blood rush to the
veins of your youth
Civilization,
They must have offered you the white flowers
of purity
They purest blood of their revolution to cleanse
your land of the evil spirits of their minds
Their own minds
Their own pollution
Indifference to the feelings of desire
How did they kill the beats of the heart
the beat of heat of the pulse of love for one another?
Civilization
How many shall be killed more in the name of morality
And official religion?
Civilization
I humbly come before you and offer you love
Lots of love
Love and love and love
That one which the basket of morality can no longer hold
That one which the hands of religion can no longer touch
That one which the arms of their gods can no longer embrace
I shall take you to the place beyond common understanding
It is love and love and love
Beyond what you can take.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become space faring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds.
quote by Carl Sagan

Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
quote by Henry Ellis

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.
quote by Henry James

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ancient India
India is ample known
For its three thousand year old
Civilization brought in by Aryans,
Who invaded as nomads.
It is little known for its prior
Civilization lived by Dravidians
In Mohanjo daro and Harappa,
About five thousand years ago.
It is little known at all
For its ten thousand year old
Civilization planted
By Mundas and Santals,
Now tribes on hillocks,
Branded the most backward.
18.07.2000, Plkmdi
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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Human civilization will be a huge stalactite. Nowadays, we can see its very first crystals.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from Immensity of the Point, translated by Eva A. Ziem

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
quote by Sigmund Freud

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The basic problem is that our civilization, which is a civilization of machines, can teach man everything except how to be a man.
quote by Andre Malraux

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Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.
quote by Slobodan Milosevic

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The fact is, every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandon his one-sided intellectual occupation by practical necessity, immediately returns to the general point of view of mankind.
quote by Ernst Mach

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Human civilization is not something achieved against nature; it is rather the outcome of the working of the innate qualities of man.
quote by Ludwig von Mises

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Thus, it was to seek true civilization and true justice for all the peoples of the world, and to view this as the destruction of personal freedom and respect is to be assailed by the hatred and emotion of war, and to make hasty judgments.
quote by Hideki Tojo

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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