#civil

This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization. We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe ↗

— Jimmy Carter

#civilization #future #milky-way #president #space

It is something great and greatening to cherish an ideal; to act in the light of truth that is far-away and far above; to set aside the near advantage, the momentary pleasure; the snatching of seeming good to self; and to act for remoter ends, for higher good, and for interests other than our own. ↗

— Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

#inspirational #inspirational

The "norm" for humanity is love. Brutality is an aberration. We are not sinners by nature. We learn to be bad. We are taught to stray from our good paths. We are made to be crazy by other people who are also crazy and who draw for us a map of the world which is ugly, negative, fearful, and crazy. ↗

— Jack D. Forbes

#civilization #critique #humanity #inspirational #love

To the followers of the murdered Caesar: Do you march against Decimus Brutus Albinus in Gaul, or against the son of Caesar in Rome? Ask Marcus Antonius. Are you mobilized to destroy the enemies of your dead leader, or to protect his assassins? Ask Marcus Antonius. Where is the will of the dead Caesar which bequeathed to every citizen of Rome three hundred pieces of silver coin? Ask Marcus Antonius. The murderers and conspirators against Caesar are free by an act of the Senate sanctioned by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Gaius Cassius Longinus has been given the governorship of Syria by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Marcus Junius Brutus has been given the governorship of Crete by Marcus Antonius. Where are the friends of the murdered Caesar among his enemies? The son of Caesar calls to you. ↗

— John Edward Williams

#civil-war #inspirational #inspirational

It's when the 'international community' expresses 'concern' about your 'situation' that your situation is well and truly fucked. ↗

— Michael D. Weiss

#geopolitics #inaction #international-community #politics #syria

I think really, China, Chinese, I think they really have a long history of civilization, rich culture. ↗

— Dalai Lama

#chinese #civilization #culture #history #i

In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions. ↗

— Max Lerner

#civilization #consumers #get #our #ourselves

Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male. ↗

— Max Lerner

#civilization #discovery #fire #greatest #human

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#belief #civil #civil rights #civil rights movement #diversity

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#battle #blacks #changed #civil #civil rights