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"The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion."
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"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization."
"A civilization is built upon the edifice of genuine human minds, not the primitive and deluded minds of barbarian apes, who in most cases read one book of opinions written hundreds or thousands of years ago and think that they have factual answers to all the questions in the world."
"Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness-- they cannot work and their civilization collapses."
"Civilization... wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere."
"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
"Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights."
"Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims- the welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent."
"It ain't technology that enhances the civilization..but the way mankind perceives nature from all standpoints."
"In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters."
"We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse."
Explore more quotes by Elihu Root
"There is so much of good in human nature that men grow to like each other upon better acquaintance, and this points to another way in which we may strive to promote the peace of the world."
"Prejudice and passion and suspicion are more dangerous than the incitement of self-interest or the most stubborn adherence to real differences of opinion regarding rights."
"Gradually, everything that happens in the world is coming to be of interest everywhere in the world, and, gradually, thoughtful men and women everywhere are sitting in judgment upon the conduct of all nations."
"The mere assemblage of peace loving people to interchange convincing reasons for their common faith, mere exhortation and argument to the public in favor of peace in general fall short of the mark."
"The point of departure of the process to which we wish to contribute is the fact that war is the natural reaction of human nature in the savage state, while peace is the result of acquired characteristics."
"Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall."
"Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded as wicked and degrading."
"Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice."
"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."
"The law of the survival of the fittest led inevitably to the survival and predominance of the men who were effective in war and who loved it because they were effective."
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