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"The last struggle for our rights, the battle for our civilization, is entirely with ourselves."
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"If this is called civilization, then I am afraid humanity is no more civilized than the Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others."

"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."

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

"Without civilization, we would not turn into animals, but vegetables."
Explore more quotes by William Wells Brown

"Despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims are more numerous."

"When this boy was brought to Dr. Young, his name being William, the same as mine, my mother was ordered to change mine to something else. This, at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed upon my rights."

"I would have the Constitution torn in shreds and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Let us destroy the Constitution and build on its ruins the temple of liberty. I have brothers in slavery. I have seen chains placed on their limbs and beheld them captive."

"All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts."

"The last struggle for our rights, the battle for our civilization, is entirely with ourselves."
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