"The path of civilization is paved with tin cans."

Hubbard, Elbert on civilization   

"Civilization today reminds me of an ape with a blowtorch playing in a room full of dynamite. It looks like the monkeys are about to operate the zoo, and the inmates are taking over the asylum."

Havner, Vance on civilization   

"As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on civilization   

"All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution."

Ellis, Havelock on civilization   

"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river."

Durant, William J. on civilization
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"Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities."

Twain, Mark on civilization   

"If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe."

Weil, Simone on civilization   

"Why do you have to a nonconformist like everybody else?"

Thurber, James on conformity   

"As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course."

Thoreau, Henry David on conformity
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"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on conformity
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"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."

McLaughlin, Mignon on conformity
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"Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity."

Hoffer, Eric on conformity
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"The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity."

Anthony, Dr. Robert on conformity
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"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all for fear of being carried off their feet. The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right."

Tocqueville, Alexis De on complacency   

"America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind."

Mailer, Norman on complacency   

"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on complacency
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"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error."

Jackson, Robert H. on citizenship   

"The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal."

Hegel, Georg on citizenship   

"We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on."

Seattle, Chief on america   

"The story of Americans is the story of arrested metamorphoses. Those who achieve success come to a halt and accept themselves as they are. Those who fail become resigned and accept themselves as they are."

Rosenberg, Harold on america   

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life."

Roosevelt, Theodore on america
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"A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that we do -- namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions."

Roosevelt, Eleanor on america   

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

Pope, Alexander on america   

"The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail. You can safely appeal to the United Nations in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down."

O'Brien, Conor Cruise on america   

"It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can."

Northcliffe, Lord on america   

"If you think the United States has stood still, who built The largest shopping center in the world?"

Nixon, Richard M. on america
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"I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen."

Miller, Henry on america
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"Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are."

Stein, Gertrude on america   

"This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me."

Steinbeck, John on america   

"America is just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."

Thompson, Hunter S. on america   

"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others."

Bierce, Ambrose on calamity
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"We’re sleeping and there’s a bunch of creepy old dudes molesting us. "

Dye, James on america   

"The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left."

Welles, Orson on america   

"It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can't see."

Warhol, Andy on america   

"Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we've got a lot more beef steak than any other country, and that's why you ought to be glad you're an American. And people have started looking at these big hunks of bloody meat on their plates, you know, and wondering what on earth they think they're doing."

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt on america   

"There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American."

Twain, Mark on america   

"It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it."

Twain, Mark on america
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"In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?"

Twain, Mark on america
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"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair."

Toynbee, Arnold on america   

"I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it."

Dickens, Charles on villains
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