Carroll Quigley: Trending quotes (page 3)

“These seven stages we shall name as follows:
1. Mixture
2. Gestation
3. Expansion
4. Age of Conflict
5. Universal Empire
6. Decay
7. Invasion”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 5, Historical Change in Civilizations, p. 146

Age , Universe

“The instrument of expansion of Classical civilization was a social organization, slavery.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 9, Classical Civilization, p. 270

“No scientist ever believes that he has the final answer or the ultimate truth on anything.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 1, Scientific Method and the Social Sciences, p. 34

Truth

“The problem of meaning today is the problem of how the diverse and superficially self-contradictory experiences of men can be put into a consistent picture that will provide contemporary man with a convincing basis from which to live and to act.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), p. 1278

Men , Problem

“A civilization is complicated, in the first place, because it is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing in the passage of time, until it has perished.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 4, Historical Analysis, p. 85

Change , Time

“A fully integrated culture would be like the dinosaurs, which had to perish because they were no longer able to adapt themselves to changes in the external environment.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 2, Man and Culture, p. 63

Change

“…we were brainwashed into believing… that the only important thing was individualism. They called it freedom. There is no such thing as freedom. There is something called liberty; it's quite different. …read [Guido de] Ruggiero's History of European Liberalism… Freedom is freedom from restraints. We're always under restraints.”

Carroll Quigley

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

History , Freedom , Reading

“…the nineteenth century Age of Expansion… brought on an acceleration of the main focus of the activities of society… from the areas of internal controls to the areas of external controls. …the increasing role of propaganda… helped create an impression of stability.”

Carroll Quigley

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Age , Help

“The social sciences are usually concerned with groups of persons rather than individual persons. The behavior of individuals, being free, is unpredictable.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 3, Groups, Societies, and Civilizations, p. 67

Behavior , Science , Personality

“For years I have told my students that I been trying to train executives rather than clerks. The distinction between the two is parallel to the distinction previously made between understanding and knowledge. It is a mighty low executive who cannot hire several people with command of more knowledge than he has himself.”

Carroll Quigley

Conclusion, p. 420
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979)

People , Understanding , Knowledge , Training

“The West believes that man and the universe are both complex and that the apparently discordant parts of each can be put into a reasonably workable arrangement with a little good will, patience, and experimentation.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), p. 1227

Universe , Parting , Patience

“The vested interests encourage the growth of imperialist wars and irrationality because both serve to divert the discontent of the masses away from their vested interests”

Carroll Quigley

the uninvested surplus
Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 5, Historical Change in Civilizations, p. 152

War

“The economic and technological achievements of industrialization in this period were fundamentally mistaken. …based upon plundering the natural capital of the globe that was created over millions of years: the plundering of the soils and their fertility; the plundering of human communities whether they were our own or someone else's.”

Carroll Quigley

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Communication , Nature

“It is clear that every civilization undergoes a process of historical change. We can see that a civilization comes into existence, passes through a long experience, and eventually goes out of existence.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 5, Historical Change in Civilizations, p. 127

Change

“The fundamental, all-pervasive cause of world instability is the destruction of communities by the commercialization of all human relationships and the resulting neuroses and psychoses. The technological acceleration of transportation, communication and weapons systems is now creating power areas wider than existing political structures.”

Carroll Quigley

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

World , Communication

“After years of work in both areas of study, I concluded that the social sciences were different, in many important ways, from the natural sciences, but that the same scientific methods were applicable in both areas, and, indeed, that no very useful work could be done in either area except by scientific methods.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 1, Scientific Method and the Social Sciences, p. 33

Way , Nature , Study , Science

“Western ideology believed that the world was good because it was made by God in six days and that at the end of each day He looked at His work and said that it was good.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 10, Western Civilization, p. 337

God , World

“To know is not too demanding: it merely requires memory and time. But to understand is quite a different matter: it requires intellectual ability and training, a self conscious awareness of what one is doing, experience in techniques of analysis and synthesis, and above all, perspective.”

Carroll Quigley

Conclusion, p. 415
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979)

Understanding , Memory , Time , Training

“When Rome fell, the Christian answer was, "Create our own communities."”

Carroll Quigley

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Communication

“Our political organization, based as it is on an eighteenth-century separation of powers and on a nineteenth-century nationalist state, is generally recognized to be semiobselete.”

Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 4, Historical Analysis, p. 123