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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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"Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell."
"I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt."
"If this is called civilization, then I am afraid humanity is no more civilized than the Tyrannosaurus Rex."
"The majority of India's adult and elderly population is too medieval to think as civilized, rational and progressive human beings."
"In the world of primitive savages, religion and bigotry go hand in hand. But, in the world of civilized humans, religion and reason must go hand in hand."
"Education is not the amount of information that is pushed into the brain and causes havoc there, undigested all through a lifetime. Education must be a symposium of life-building, character- making and assimilation of ideas in the pursuit of building a more harmonious, peaceful and truly civilized world."
"Libraries, museums, universities, everything we designed and built over six thousand years. Cities are more than the sum of their infrastructure. They transcend brick and mortar, concrete and steel. They're the vessels into which human knowledge is poured."
"There is nothing more savage than modern civilization."
"What it values most of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete."
"Advanced weaponry, victories in battle and space travel do not an advanced species or civilization make."
Explore more quotes by Elihu Root
"The popular tendency is to listen approvingly to the most extreme statements and claims of politicians and orators who seek popularity by declaring their own country right in everything and other countries wrong in everything."
"It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war."
"In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought."
"Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot."
"The limitation upon this mode of promoting peace lies in the fact that it consists in an appeal to the civilized side of man, while war is the product of forces proceeding from man's original savage nature."
"Human life is held in much higher esteem, and the taking of it, whether in private quarrel or by judicial procedure, is looked upon much more seriously than it was formerly."
"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."
"No nation now sets forth to despoil another upon the avowed ground that it desires the spoils."
"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."
"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."
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