Diane Ackerman Quotes

Horses are in our DNA. We used them way before cars for commuting.

Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery.

Horse is fine. I'll ride a horse.

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and of civilization.

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

Cities are the greatest creations of humanity.

I could hang with horses all day.

The hallmark of our times is change and acceleration, but we have to provide the history.

All civilizations must go through four stages: The first stage is the emergence of a new civilization and society. The second stage covers a period of growth and prosperity. Stagnation and decadence characterize the third stage where wealth can no longer increase. This brings us to a fourth stage of decline leading to the ultimate collapse. Finally, a new civilization emerges from the ashes of the previous one and another cycle is born. The conditions of the world, and of the nations do not persist in one unchanging state but are transformed with the passage of time and move from one condition to another

Civilizations are a matter of the mind.

I saw their fields under very respectable cultivation, and bearing good crops. They had exchanged their original rude wigwams for comfortable houses, with barns and offices attached to them, scarcely if at all inferior to those of the whites, and some of the houses have little plots or gardens in front kept in good order… All these marks of improvement surprised us; we did not expect to meet with a state of such high comparative civilization.

America’s history is the history of her transportation.

While the overall goal of any society must be to educate all its members, at this stage in human history the greatest need is to educate women and girls. For over twenty years, studies have consistently documented that, of all possible investments, educating women and girls pays the highest overall dividends in terms of social development, the eradication of poverty and the advancement of community.

Civilization is not a spontaneous generation with any race or nation known to history, but the torch to be handed down from race to race from age to age.

I am well convinced that Aerial Navigation will form a most prominent feature in the progress of civilization

In order to sustain such large number and such immense cities as Cahokia and Tiahuanaco, the original Americans had to do more than pick berries, they had to transform their environment.

Human history can be viewed as an endless search for greater order.

Most civilizational advancements occurred under empires.

Go ask Virginia— go ask even noble Maryland ... to show you her people, canals, railroads, universities, schools, charities, commerce cities, and cultivated areas.

Paper is at the center of so many of the elements of the development of civilization.

I love talking about space, our society, and what the future holds for us as a civilization.

Civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence - whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.

Commerce is the great civilizer.