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"Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos."
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"If this is called civilization, then I am afraid humanity is no more civilized than the Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"This grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings....the merry dance of death and trade goes on."

"The first requisite of civilization is that of justice."

"After the monkeys came down from the trees and learned to hurl sharp objects, they had had to move into caves for protection--not only from the big predatory cats but, as they began to lose their monkey fur, from the elements. Eventually, they started transposing their hunting fantasies onto cave walls in the form of pictures, first as an attempt at practical magic and later for the strange, unexpected pleasure they discovered in artistic creation. Time passed. Art came off the walls and turned into ritual. Ritual became religion. Religion spawned science. Science led to big business. And big business, if it continues on its present mindless, voracious trajectory, could land those of us lucky enough to survive its ultimate legacy back into caves again."

"Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization."

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."

"A civilized society is formed when every individual in that society are bound to obey the rules and regulation which is for the benefit of their own society."

"Without civilization, we would not turn into animals, but vegetables."

"Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war."

"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
Explore more quotes by Will Durant

"In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order."

"We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries."

"If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous."

"The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers."

"The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority."
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