This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
There is one common condition for the lot of women in Western civilization and all other civilizations that we know about for certain, and that is, woman as a sex is disliked and persecuted, while as an individual she is liked, loved, and even, with reasonable luck, sometimes worshipped.
Civilization | Individual | Woman |
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
From the standpoint of the typical modern, Protestantism and Renaissance are merely two different movements in the direction of individual freedom, the only difference between them being that the latter is a little more congenial to the modern spirit than the former. The real significance of the two movements lies in the fact that one represents the final development of individuality within terms of the Christian religion and the other an even further development of individuality beyond the limits set in the Christian religion, that is, the development of the autonomous individual. It is this autonomous individual who really ushers in modern civilization and who is completely annihilated in the final stages of that civilization.
Civilization | Individual | Individuality | Little | Religion | Spirit |
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.
Civilization | Death | Existence | History | Immortality |
René Dubos, fully René Jules Dubos
There is a demon in technology. It was put there by man and man will have to exorcise it before technological civilization can achieve the eighteenth-century ideal of humane civilized life. Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment.
Civilization | Man | Will |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love.
But the likelihood is that, in 100,000 years time, we shall either have reverted to wild barbarism, or else civilization will have advanced beyond all recognition--into colonies in outer space, for instance. In either case, evolutionary extrapolations from present conditions are likely to be highly misleading.
Civilization | Present | Will |
The likelihood is that, in 100,000 years- time, we shall either have reverted to wild barbarism, or else civilization will have advanced beyond all recognition
Civilization | Will |
Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright
Is not life exactly what it ought to be, in a certain sense? Isn't it only the naive who find all of this baffling? If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself?
Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.
Part of me remained forever at Latitude 80 degrees 08 minutes South: what survived of my youth, my vanity, perhaps, and certainly my skepticism. On the other hand, I did take away something that I had not fully possessed before: appreciation of the sheer beauty and miracle of being alive, and a humble set of values. All this happened four years ago. Civilization has not altered my ideas. I live more simply now, and with more peace.
Appreciation | Beauty | Civilization | Appreciation | Beauty |
Richard Tarnas, fully Richard Theodore Tarnas
The Cosmology of a civilization both reflects and influences all human activity, motivation, and self-understanding that takes place within its parameters. It is the container for everything else.
Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright
If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb... But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself?
Civilization | Earth | Effort | Fear | Heart | Knowing | Man | Men | Order | Spirit | Wants | Afraid |
Civilization rests on two things: the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and the voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendid civilization be without both?
Ability | Civilization | Discovery | Discovery |
Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.
Civilization | Crime | Means | People |
Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came. Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: 'Twas on a tree they slew Him -- last When out of the woods He came.
Civilization | Land | Old |
Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání
He is very sorry that such undesirable things are every now and then cropping up in … and discouraging you in your work, keeping you from devoting all your spare time in teaching the Cause, and spreading its principles. He does not wish you, however, to lose heart from such things. As the Cause grows its difficulties will increase and its problems will become more numerous. The friends, especially the older ones, should therefore try and stand unmoved by them. In fact the more their difficulties will increase the more they have to take courage and try to solve them. The Master has often said that sorrows are like furrows, the deeper they go the more productive the land becomes. If this problem. .. should be settled other problems will arise. Are the friends to become discouraged or are they to follow the footsteps of the Master and consider them more as chances to show their tenacity of belief and spirit of sacrifice?
Belief | Books | Civilization | Destiny | Future | God | Human race | Humanity | Impetuosity | Infancy | Life | Life | Love | Past | Promise | Race | Time | Vehemence | Vision | Will | Wisdom | World | Youth | Youth | God | Old |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
No, I'm just a man committed to great ideas.
Children | Civilization | Dignity | Dreams | History | Law | Materialism | People | Price | Success | Will | Learn | Think |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
I know you receive many letters like this, and I recognize that over time they must come to seem fairly routine... Please understand, however, that my years in your service will always be very special to me. The inspiration you have given me will burn brightly in my heart long after I have left the lights of the White House behind.
Civilization | Past |
Of all sorts of earthly good the price is self-denial.—The lower must be sacrificed for the greater; the coarser give place to the finer.—Every step of our progress toward success is a sacrifice.—We gain by losing; grow by dwindling; live by dying.
Civilization | God | Nations | God |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists.
Civilization | Culture | Individual | Sense |
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Opposition and calumny are often the brightest tribute that vice and folly can pay to virtue and wisdom.
Civilization | People |