#civil

The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#american #benefits #citizens #civilization #economic

A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#beings #civilization #exist #express #freely

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education... no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ↗

— Abraham Flexner

#billions #borrow #borrowed #both #cannot

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ↗

— Abraham Flexner

#cannot #choice #civilization #enough #make

When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or below our neighbours; just this determination to obey without questioning and to subscribe with passion to the conventions and traditions. The dilemma becomes a very real one: How can this sense of democratic equality be made compatible with respect for exceptional personalities or great minds? How can democracy, as we understand it today, with its iron repression of the free spirit, its monotonous standardisation of everything, learn to cherish an intellectual aristocracy without which any nation runs the risk of becoming a civilisation of the commonplace and the second-rate? ↗

— Harold Edmund Stearns

#civilization #conventions #distinction #equality #individualism

When asked what gave her the strength and commitment to refuse segregation, (Rosa) Parks credited her mother and grandfather "for giving me the spirit of freedom... that I should not feel because of my race or color, inferior to any person. That I should do my very best to be a respectable person, to respect myself, to expect respect from others. ↗

— Jeanne Theoharis

#equal-rights #equality #inspirational #rosa-parks #equality

The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely tolerance. ↗

— E. M. Forster

#cannot #civilization #dramatic #emotional #fact

What we are witnessing now is a clash of civilisations, not just between states but within them. ↗

— Pim Fortuyn

#civilisations #clash #just #now #states

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters. ↗

— John Fowles

#end #essence #green #hardest #renaissance

Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive. ↗

— Morgan Freeman

#civil #civil rights #him #his #jr