W. G. Sebald Quotes

If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

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.

It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.

Civilization is vastly overrated.

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

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?

"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?"

Civilization is over-rated, but there isn't much else.

Civilization has always been a bust.

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

For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?

Civilization is not a burden. It is an opportunity.

Civilization is sterilization.

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

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.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

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.

[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.

Sedentary culture is the goal of civilization. It means the end of its lifespan and brings about its corruption.

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

Allen's Law of Civilization: It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it.

I am among those who believe that our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival. This quest for enlightenment must begin now. It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late.

Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.