Greg Gutfeld Quotes

Language turned apes like us into civil creatures.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

Social thinking requires very exacting thresholds to be powerful. For example, we've had social thinking for 200,000 years, and hardly anything happened that could be considered progress over most of that time. This is because what is most pervasive about social thinking is 'how to get along and mutually cope.'

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape, a cannibal, an eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,—a certain degree of progress from this extreme is called Civilization.

You couldn't have human society without language.

We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.

The rise of man from the animal to the human level was prolonged by the necessity of rising from a state of barbarism and violence to one of order and peace.

The mystery is what prompted men to leave caves, to come out of the womb of nature.

The human animal has evolved as a preeminently social animal.

I don't think language could have evolved if it was the only distinctive trait. It goes hand in hand with our ability to develop tools and technologies, and also with the fact that we cooperate with nonrelatives.

It's fortunate that I am a writer, because that has helped me understand the properties of words. They are what have made life complex. In the battle for status in the animal kingdom, power and aggressiveness have been all-important. But among humans, once they acquired speech, all that changed.

No community ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can be called civilization

Civilization and religion do not necessarily move with equal pace.

The history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.

Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols

Perhaps of all the creations of man language is the most astonishing.

If we meet and I say, "Hi," That's a salutation. If you ask me how I feel, That's a consideration. If we stop and talk awhile, That's a conversation. If we understand each other, That's communication. If we argue, scream and fight, That's an altercation. If later we apologize, That's a reconciliation. If we help each other home, That's cooperation. And all these ations added up Make civilization. (And if I say this is a wonderful poem, Is that exaggeration?)

This unique strategy that the advanced primates created, the strategy of using language to bind time, is what the process we call 'civilization' has been all about.

One who cannot live in harmony with others is regarded as an ignorant fool, even if he happens to be very learned in various matters.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

For many women, and a fair number of men, saying 'I'm sorry' isn't literally an apology; it's a ritual way of restoring balance to a conversation.

Illiteracy causes violence. If you don't have enough words in your vocabulary, you can't even seek your way out of a situation.

People that don't talk are constipated. I'm sorry, but if you can't communicate, what do you have? You have nothing.