Mary Ritter Beard Quotes

Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.

Civilization and religion do not necessarily move with equal pace.

In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved.

All societies are historical.

Things change in different countries as people grow, and as generations change.

We now know how things were in the '60s and how things have changed, but I don't think we appreciate how much things have changed.

Things aren't much wilder now, I don't think, than they were back then. Of course I just read about all the goings-on now. Ha.

You have to look at history as an evolution of society.

The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development.

Civilization develops man, and if he is, according to his whole character and destiny, made for development, civilization is his truly natural state …

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.

Fight to preserve these traits of civilization, that made us go forward.

The inclination to aggression constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.

All that is great in man comes through work; and civilization is its product.

Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won't be for another thousand years?

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

Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.

We have not chosen this time. We cannot help it if we are born as men of the early winter of full Civilization, instead of on the golden summit of a ripe Culture, in a Phidias or a Mozart time. Everything depends on our seeing our own position, our destiny, clearly, on our realizing that though we may lie to ourselves about it, we cannot evade it. He who does not acknowledge this in his heart, ceases to be counted among the men of his generation, and remains either a simpleton, a charlatan, or a pedant.

The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it.

We owe the origin and development of human society and, consequently, of culture and civilization, to the fact that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than when performed in isolation.

The culture cannot evolve faster than the language. The language is the flashlight that shows the path.

It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory

No country can reach a high stage of civilization without a leisure class.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.