H. Rider Haggard Quotes

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 civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage.

What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.

I have this feeling that as time goes on, we're not getting any more civilized, and we should be. We're still running around like the days of Genghis Khan. There are so many important, better things to do and we need to encourage people to reach into the brighter side of humanity and not encourage people to continue to glorify the darker side.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

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.

There can be no high civilization where there is not ample leisure.

We are all civilized people, wich means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behaviour.

For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.

There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.

Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?

I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can.

"Civilization rests on two things," said Hitzig; "the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?"

From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

Each time I wander into blogdom, I'm reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.

I don't think we really gave barbarism a fair try.

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.

The human race is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization.

What does civilization mean to you, and what would its ending bring to the world?

Break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.