Neil Gaiman Quotes

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.

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.

What if culture itself is nothing but a halt, a break, a respite, in the pursuit of barbarity?

Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.

To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism.

Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

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.

The history of the world demonstrates that man becomes what we call civilized by increasing his wants.

Are we savages or what?

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

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind.

From the failure of the humanist tradition to participate fully or to act decisively, civilizations may perhaps crumble or perish at the hands of barbarians. But unless the humanist tradition itself in some form survives, there can really be no civilization at all.

Civilization has always been a bust.

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

Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph

If, then, this civilization is to be saved, if it is not to be submerged by centuries of barbarism, but to secure the treasures ofits inheritance on new and more stable foundations, there is indeed need for those now living fully to realize how far the decay has already progressed.

Wild as man was, and disgusting as the more degraded tribes and communities were, the best of them, and all those from which further advance came, were marked by good qualities, or they could never have risen to a higher stage.

Primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

The word civilization to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing. For me it was always so. I don't believe in the golden ages, you see... civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture.

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?

If the world suffers from mental deterioration or from moral degradation, then something goes wrong at the very root of civilization or culture. Even though that civilization may drag out for a considerable period, it grows less and less vital and ultimately tumbles down.

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.

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

I think human arrogance will be the demise of civilization.

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?