Civilization quotes

“No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.”
Rod Serling - Narrator

“Civilization has a natural resistance to improving itself.”
Gene Kelly - Jerry Mulligan

“That's the history of the world, Lieutenant. Some people die before their time so that others can live. It's the cornerstone of civilization.”

John Malkovich - General Timms

“There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it.”
Ralph Fiennes - M. Gustave

“First there was the collapse of civilization: anarchy, genocide, starvation. Then when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, we got the plague.”
Vincent Klyn - Fender Tremolo

“There are conventions, formalities. Things that are just not done. I must do what is civilized.”
Lena Headey - Kitty

“It is clear that we are just an advanced breed of primates on a minor planet orbiting around a very average star, in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. BUT, ever since the dawn of civilization people have craved for an understanding of the underlying order of the world. There ought to be something very special about the...” (continue)(continue reading)
Eddie Redmayne - Stephen Hawking

“Here, right here, is where we will rebuild our civilization! It has everything we need: fresh air, clean water... and sweet acoustics!”
Jeffrey Tambor - King Peppy

“One God, that I can understand; but one wife? That is not civilized. It is not generous!”
Hugh Griffith - Sheik Ilderim

“- Goreng: You're an illusion.
- Trimagasi: Maybe. But is that important? Because we're the same now. You and I are murders. But I'm more civilized.”
Ivan Massagué - Goreng
Zorion Eguileor - Trimagasi

“- Commander Shears: You mean, you intend to uphold the letter of the law, no matter what it costs?
- Colonel Nicholson: Without law, Commander, there is no civilization.
- Commander Shears: That's just my point; here, there is no civilization.
- Colonel Nicholson: Then we have the opportunity to introduce it.”
William M. Holden - Shears
Alec Guinness - Colonel Nicholson

“Already I have dropped back into the desert as if it were my own place. Silence and solitude all around me like an impenetrable veil. Sleep more profound that civilization contrives. And then, the roadless desert, again.”

Nicole Kidman - Gertrude Bell

“Every leap of civilization was built on the back of a disposable workforce.”
Niander Wallace - Niander Wallace

“Don't ya know the black woman is the mother of civilization?”
Spike Lee - Jimmy

“That is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple!”

Kathleen Howard - Miss Bragg

“The cornerstone of civilization isn't language, it's science.”
Jeremy Renner - Ian Donnelly

“All the world's great civilizations have followed the same path. From bondage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy back to bondage. If we are to be the exception to history, then we must break the cycle, for those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Madeline Carroll - Molly Johnson

“- Old Priest: The savages did this to me.
- Laforgue: The indians? Why?
- Old Priest: They are uncivilized, just as the English or Germans were before we came to them.”

Claude Préfontaine - Old Priest
Lothaire Bluteau - Laforgue

“I've been called many things over many lifetimes: Ra, Krishna, Yahweh. I was there to spark and fan the flame of man's awakening, to spin the wheel of civilization.”
Oscar Isaac - Apocalypse

“The foundation of all civilization is loitering.”
Jean Renoir

“- Walter: I want you all to consider what I am about to suggest to you. You people seem to want what we've got. Well, we have room for you. We have room for you and about 30 of your friends. You would be students of course, but you'd also be teachers. And the new civilizations you would be travelling to would be unlike anything you've ever seen...” (continue)(continue reading)
Brian Dennehy - Walter
Wilford Brimley - Ben Luckett

“- Sanchez: I see rooftops, I see palaces, I see towers, I see spires that reach... to the sky! I see civilisation!
- Columbus: All of them built by people like me. No matter how long you live, Sanchez, there is something that will never change between us. I did it. You didn't.”
Armand Assante - Sanchez
Gérard Depardieu - Columbus

“A civilized society must live with a hard truth: he who seeks revenge digs two graves.”

Laura Linney - Constance Harraway

“In civilized towns you look a man direct in the face when you talk to him.”
Kurt Russell - Sheriff Hunt

“- Fezzik: We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike. No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.
- Westley: You mean, you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?”
André the Giant - Fezzik
Cary Elwes - Westley