#barbarism

Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. ↗

— Edward Bellamy

#chaos #civilization #imagination

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#barbarism #customs #law #nature #self-centered

Back through the ages of barbarism and civilization, in all tongues, we find this instinctive pleasure in the imitative action that is the very essence of all drama. ↗

— George P. Baker

#ages #back #barbarism #civilization #drama

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances. ↗

— Simone Weil

#barbarism #becomes #characteristic #circumstances #considered

Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made. ↗

— Jose Ortega y Gasset

#appeal #barbarism #made #standards #which

The age in which we live can only be characterized as one of barbarism. Our civilization is in the process not only of being militarized, but also being brutalized. ↗

— Alva Myrdal

#also #barbarism #being #brutalized #characterized

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#barbarism #be prepared #civilization #defend #force

Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole. Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead. Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#barbarism #civil #civilization #courtesy #manners

There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it. ↗

— Carlos Fuentes

#beyond #existence #help #mankind #must

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#attain #barbarism #greeks #hardly #human