#civilisation

In spite of overwhelming evidence, it is most difficult for a citizen of western Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth that the civilisation which surrounds him is a rare exception in the history of the world. ↗

— Henry James Sumner Maine

#citizen #civilisation #difficult #europe #evidence

Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#civilisation #cowardice #law #cowardice

Diaspora starts about a thousand years from now. Most of human civilisation has moved inside computers; essentially, a major branch of our descendants consists of conscious software. ↗

— Greg Egan

#branch #civilisation #computers #conscious #consists

Based on the experience of history and civilization of mankind, which is more important for Muslims today, to no longer busy discussing the greatness that Muslims achieved in the past, or debating who first discovered the number zero, including the number one, two, three and so on, as the contribution of Muslims in the writing of numbers in this modern era and the foundation and development of civilizations throughout the world. But how Muslims will regained the lead and control of science and technology, leading back and become a leader in the world of science and civilization, because it represents a real achievement. ↗

— Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie

#bj #civilisation #cordoba #habibie #indonesia

I profess accurately to describe native Africa - Africa in those places where it has not received the slightest impulse, whether for good or evil, from European civilisation. ↗

— John H. Speke

#africa #civilisation #describe #european #evil

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation. ↗

— Benjamin Disraeli

#comfort #materialism #progress #science #science

The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation. ↗

— James Buchan

#doubt #empire #fall #more #much

My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#civilisation #colony #disprove #dumping #either

The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable. ↗

— David Mamet

#civilisation #did #discover #discovery #drama

This is indeed a clash of civilisations, not between Islam and Christendom but between reason and superstition. ↗

— Polly Toynbee

#christendom #civilisations #clash #indeed #islam