Civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.[Oт цивилизации человек стал если не более кровожаден, то уже, наверно, хуже, гаже кровожаден, чем прежде.]
Yes, and civilization is sterilization.
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilisation.
It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct.[Ist es unmöglich zu übersehen, in welchem Ausmaß die Kultur auf Triebverzicht aufgebaut ist.]
It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.
It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.[Es braucht nicht gesagt zu werden, daß eine Kultur, welche eine so große Zahl von Teilnehmern unbefriedigt läßt und zur Auflehnung treibt, weder Aussicht hat, sich dauernd zu erhalten, noch es verdient.]
I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then, I ate my own wickedness.
You taught me language; and my profit on’t is, I know how to curse.
Without a woman we’d discuss racing cars and horses and tell dirty jokes; no civilization.
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.
We must recognise the essential underlaying savagery in the animal called man, and return to older and sounder principles of national life and defense. We must realise that man’s nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilisation is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake.
