#civilization

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man. ↗

— Aung San Suu Kyi

#dictatorship #dignity #fear #freedom #human-rights

If the ego is not regularly and repeatedly dissolved in the unbounded hyperspace of the Transcendent Other, there will always be slow drift away from the sense of self as part of nature’s larger whole. The ultimate consequence of this drift is the fatal ennui that now permeates Western Civilization. ↗

— Terence McKenna

#self #western-civilization #food

Our civilization will, of course, be "playing God" in an ultimate sense of the phrase: evolving a greater intelligence than currently exists on earth. It behooves us to be a considerate creator, wise to the world and its fragile nature, sensitive to the needs for stable footings that will prevent backsliding -- and keep that house of cards we call civilization from collapsing. ↗

— William H. Calvin

#intelligence #intelligence

Love as a concrete foundation for an authentically functional civilization requires the around-the-clock labors of forgiveness. Without it, Love fails, Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails. ↗

— Aberjhani

#civilization #forgiveness #friendship #grace #hope

Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually. ↗

— James A. Michener

#knowledge #libraries #society #life

When people stargazing, they stare at stars, and many other things which they've already presumed commonly and universally as stars. ↗

— Toba Beta

#civilization #life #sky #space #star

I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#depression #life #philosophy #life

Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#men

My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They're rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed. ↗

— Robert E. Howard

#civilization #men

it wont be long now it wont be long man is making deserts of the earth it wont be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it .... what man calls civilization always results in deserts .... men talk of money and industry of hard times and recoveries of finance and economics but the ants wait and the scorpions wait for while men talk they are making deserts all the time getting the world ready for the conquering ant drought and erosion and desert because men cannot learn .... it wont be long now it wont be long till earth is barren as the moon and sapless as a mumbled bone ↗

— Don Marquis

#civilization #deserts #don-marquis #earth #man