#civilisation

In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane. ↗

— Yukichi Fukuzawa

#civilization #culture #humanity #inspirational #inspirational

The Japanese keenly learned from Western civilisation in a bid to modernize and preserve the nation. ↗

— Akihito

#civilisation #japanese #keenly #learned #modernize

Just carrying a ruler with you in your pocket should be forbidden, at least on a moral basis. The ruler is the symbol of the new illiteracy. The ruler is the symptom of the new disease, disintegration of our civilisation. ↗

— Friedensreich Hundertwasser

#carrying #civilisation #disease #disintegration #forbidden

Borne out of this, starting around the 17th Century was the Baroque era. It is my view that it is one of the architectural peak periods in western civilisation. ↗

— Harry Seidler

#around #baroque #borne #century #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

...и най-внушителните съоражения в основата си израстват от пясък. Именно той е канавата, от която се появява един от най-внушителните символи на цивилизацията - пътят. Така както в един дворец не може да има само мрамор, така и пътят започва от прашинката. А не е ли така и с живота ни? Колко пясък трябва да изгребе търсачът на съкровища, за да достигне до една трошица злато? ↗

— Силвия Томова

#life #roads #sand #life

The twins were too young to know that these were only history’s henchmen. Sent to square the books and collect the dues from those who broke its laws. Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear—civilization’s fear of nature, men’s fear of women, power’s fear of powerlessness. Man’s subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#history #human-nature #psychology #men

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

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself in far more hubs of power than ever before. ↗

— William Hague

#before #blocs #centres #civilisation #decision-making

And I'll close by saying this. Because anti-Semitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny and fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people, I learned, but as the common enemy of humanity and of civilisation, and has to be fought against very tenaciously for that reason, most especially in its current, most virulent form of Islamic Jihad. Daniel Pearl's revolting murderer was educated at the London School of Economics. Our Christmas bomber over Detroit was from a neighboring London college, the chair of the Islamic Students' Society. Many pogroms against Jewish people are being reported from all over Europe today as I'm talking, and we can only expect this to get worse, and we must make sure our own defenses are not neglected. Our task is to call this filthy thing, this plague, this—this pest, by its right name; to make unceasing resistance to it, knowing all the time that it's probably ultimately ineradicable, and bearing in mind that its hatred towards us is a compliment, and resolving (some of the time, at any rate) to do a bit more to deserve it. Thank you. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#anti-semitism #christmas #civilisation #daniel-pearl #detroit