James Joyce Quotes

If mankind were to continue in other than the present barbarism, a new path must be found, a new civilization based on some other method than technology.

History shows us that the youth are usually a step ahead of their elders when change is required.

The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores of the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, though painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Obviously I do not refer to everyone who calls himself a rebel, but only to the authentic rebel. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel.

Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

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

Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward.

Revolution is the larva of civilization.

There is still such a thing as subversive. Subversive makes hip people nervous. It's something new that scares you in a good way. I mean, subversive to me is a compliment. Subversive is something that influences people to do something against society that they haven't thought of before.

The Pre-Raphaelites, while very bothered by what the establishment thought of them, also utterly rebelled against it. In everything - social, sexual, emotional - they were out on a limb, pushing the boundaries.

Listen, you know this: If there's not a rebellious youth culture, there's no culture at all. It's absolutely essential. It is the future. This is what we're supposed to do as a species, is advance ideas.

I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.

A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.

Only through perils and upheavals can Nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world.

Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.

You just never know when today's cultural outcasts will become tomorrow's cultural icons.

Civilization and religion do not necessarily move with equal pace.

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature

… all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

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.

I always had a desire to see change and be part of it.

Virtually every advancement made by our species since civilization first peeked out of its nest of stone has been initiated by lone individuals, mavericks who more often than not were ignored, mocked, or viciously persecuted by society and its institutions.

Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets screwed.

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better.

If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.