Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.
"You do look ill! Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"
The Savage nodded.
"I ate civilization."
"What?"
"It poisoned me; I was defiled."
It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty.
It would never endure.
You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
I mean, why have a civilisation any more if we no longer are interested in being civilised?
Hey, it's our basic human right to be fuck-ups. This civilization was founded on fuck-ups. And you know what?
Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead, he adapted his environment to suit him. So, he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery, and he put up power lines
to run his labor-saving devices, but somehow, he didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make his life easier, the more complicated he made it. So now his children are sentenced to 10 to 15 years of school just to learn how to survive in this complex and hazardous habitat they were born into. And civilized man, who refused to adapt himself
to his natural surroundings, now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt himself every day and every hour of the day to his self-created environment.
It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.
Take up the White Man's burden— — No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper— — The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden— — And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Why brought ye us from bondage, "Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden— — Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods and you.
The beating of a million drums,
The fire of a million guns,
The mother of a million sons -
Civilization.
La civilisation se mesurera aux mois de vacances que les travailleurs arracheront aux patrons.
Progress of human civilization in the area of defining human freedom is not made from the top down. No king, no parliament, no government ever extended to the people more rights than the people insisted upon.
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