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"In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions."
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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 Max Lerner

"Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there - or failing to get there."

"Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male."

"The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea."

"The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope."

"The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence."

"A politician wouldn't dream of being allowed to call a columnist the things a columnist is allowed to call a politician."

"The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt."
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