#civilization

Here is the chance for young women and young men of devotion to lift again the banner of humanity and to walk toward a civilization which will be free and intelligent; which will be healthy and unafraid, and build in the world a culture led by black folk and joined by peoples of all colors and all races - without poverty, ignorance and disease! ↗

— W.E.B. Du Bois

#devotion #disease #poverty #youth #intelligence

The brown paper bag is the only thing civilized man has produced that does not seem out of place in nature. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#nature #nature

A heart pulsating in harmony with the circulation of sap and the flow of rivers? A body with the rhythms of the earth in its movements? No. Instead: a mind, shut off from the oxygen of alert senses, that has wasted itself on 'treasons, stratagems and spoils'--of importance only within four walls. A tame animal--in whom the strength of the species has outspent itself, to no purpose. ↗

— Dag Hammarskjöld

#humans #nature #nature

There is in every village a torch - the teacher: and an extinguisher - the clergyman. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#good #madness-and-civilization #religion #religion

We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#culture #names #power-of-words #responsibility #wisdom

(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#eastern-civilization #eastern-philosophy #society #western-civilization #western-philosophy

And here was the moment. The end of it all, for civilization was merely another name for friendship, and friendship was coming to an end. ↗

— Iain Pears

#friendship #dreams

I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me... ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#flowers

Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#civilization

I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#civilization