“Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.”

— Robertson Davies

Scottish Folklore and Opera (1992).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Robertson Davies 282

Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and nov… 1913–1995

William A. Henry III (1950–1994) American critic

In Defense of Elitism

“Civilization gives the barbarian or tribal man an eye for an ear and is now at odds with the electronic world.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 30

“The Jew alone regard his race as superior to humanity, and looks forward not to its ultimate union with other races, but to its triumph over them all and to its final ascendancy under the leadership of a tribal Messiah.”

Goldwin Smith (1823–1910) British historian and journalist

Source: October 1881. See The Nineteenth Century — A monthly review, Volume 10 https://books.google.com.br/books?id=QYEPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA813, edited by James Knowles, London, 1881.

“There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Interview (1961) http://www.radiodiaries.org/mandela/t_movement.html
1960s
Context: There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate.

“[Speaking to a crowd regarding the sale of tribal land to the US Government] My friends, you have all heard what my father-in-law says, but I do not think he is right. He believes what the white people tell him; but this is only another trick of the whites to take our land away from us, and they have played these tricks before. We do not want to trust the white people. They come to use with sweet talk, but they do not mean it. We will not sign any more papers for these white men.”

Hollow Horn Bear (1850–1913) 19th century Lakota chief and policeman

[Standing Bear, Luther, My People the Sioux, November 1, 2006, University of Nebraska Press, 9780803293328, 211-12, https://books.google.com/books?id=ltSXg-abnU4C, 1 March 2018]

“Monotheism is essentially inimical to tribalism: it demands that a people unite in a single community.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 6, The Satanic Verses

“Literacy, the visual technology, dissolved the tribal magic by means of its stress on fragmentation and specialization and created the individual.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)

“As one civil-liberties lawyer, who is concerned about the sometimes vigilante attitude toward accused rapists, puts it: "Some people regard rape as so heinous an offense that they would not even regard innocence as a defense."”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

New Dangers Are Evident in Rape-Case 'Reforms' http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-08/local/me-18595_1_prior-sexual-activity published 1985-04-08

“As when in harp and song adept, a bard
Unlab'ring strains the chord to a new lyre.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XXI. 406–407 (tr. William Cowper).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“We are all civilized people, wich means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behaviour.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.”

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