Will Rogers Quotes

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

The more rapidly a civilization progresses, the sooner it dies for another to rise in its place.

I know about technology, about research, scientific applications, culture, civilization, differences between nations of the world, the nature of history.

The major challenge facing us is to elevate our national life to the highest level of civilization and prosperity.

Instead of condemning Israel, the underdeveloped countries should take it as an example of how to build an advanced, prosperous nation.

America is the first world country.

America…could within twenty years bring us to a degree of development which Turks, left to themselves, would not be able to achieve in a century. It would make Turkey prosperous, rich and happy and turn Turks into a strong and civilized nation.

What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the [Ancient] Greeks?

In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes.

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.

Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles.

Civilization in certain respects is as inadequate as it was a thousand years ago.

Civilization is an enormous device for economizing knowledge,.

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

Western Civilization has been in a state of decline since the Edwardian age, say 1910. That was the height of Greco-Roman European civilization. Then there was the First World War. That was the beginning of the end. That civilization has been in a decline ever since. But from the American triumphalist point of view our wonderful electronic revolution is really the forefront of an ongoing wonderful civilization.

The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.

I think the modernization of Chinese economy and Chinese society is a prime concern.

We have made a huge amount of progress over the last 50 years by enabling trade, by enabling kind of collaboration and learning. And actually, in fact, when you look at your average 30-year-old today, they're much better off than a 30-year-old 20 years ago, 30 years ago, because of progress in technology and health care and all the rest of this.

In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out.

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

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

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation.

A civilization is complicated, in the first place, because it is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing in the passage of time, until it has perished.