“It is also in theory, conceivable that some universal empire some day might cover the whole globe, leaving no external "barbarians" to serve as invaders.”

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 5, Historical Change in Civilizations, p. 163

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is also in theory, conceivable that some universal empire some day might cover the whole globe, leaving no external …" by Carroll Quigley?
Carroll Quigley photo
Carroll Quigley 79
American historian 1910–1977

Related quotes

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“The theory of the "expanding universe" might also be called the theory of the "shrinking atom".”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

The Expanding Universe (1933)
Context: All change is relative. The universe is expanding relatively to our common material standards; our material standards are shrinking relatively to the size of the universe. The theory of the "expanding universe" might also be called the theory of the "shrinking atom". <...>

Anne Rice photo

“And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.”

Source: Blackwood Farm (2002)
Context: "No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope – that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.

John Tyndall photo
Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“All change is relative. The universe is expanding relatively to our common material standards; our material standards are shrinking relatively to the size of the universe. The theory of the "expanding universe" might also be called the theory of the "shrinking atom."”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

[…] Let us then take the whole universe as our standard of constancy, and adopt the view of a cosmic being whose body is composed of intergalactic spaces and swells as they swell. Or rather we must now say it keeps the same size, for he will not admit that it is he who has changed. Watching us for a few thousand million years, he sees us shrinking; atoms, animals, planets, even the galaxies, all shrink alike; only the intergalactic spaces remain the same. The earth spirals round the sun in an ever&#8209;decreasing orbit. It would be absurd to treat its changing revolution as a constant unit of time. The cosmic being will naturally relate his units of length and time so that the velocity of light remains constant. Our years will then decrease in geometrical progression in the cosmic scale of time. On that scale man's life is becoming briefer; his threescore years and ten are an ever&#8209;decreasing allowance. Owing to the property of geometrical progressions an infinite number of our years will add up to a finite cosmic time; so that what we should call the end of eternity is an ordinary finite date in the cosmic calendar. But on that date the universe has expanded to infinity in our reckoning, and we have shrunk to nothing in the reckoning of the cosmic being.
We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator. As the scenes proceed he notices that the actors are growing smaller and the action quicker. When the last act opens the curtain rises on midget actors rushing through their parts at frantic speed. Smaller and smaller. Faster and faster. One last microscopic blurr of intense agitation. And then nothing.

pp. 90–92 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KHyV4-2EyrUC&pg=PA90
The Expanding Universe (1933)

Jacques Ellul photo

“This movement is invading the whole intellectual domain and also that of conscience.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Ce que je crois (1987) [What I Believe] translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1989), p. 140
Context: This is why there is such an incredible stress on information in our schools.
The important thing is to prepare young people to enter the world of information, able to handle computers, but knowing only the reasoning, the language, the combinations, and the connections between computers.
This movement is invading the whole intellectual domain and also that of conscience. … What is at issue here is evaluating the danger of what might happen to our humanity in the present half-century, and distinguishing between what we want to keep and what we are ready to lose, between what we can welcome as legitimate human development and what we should reject with our last ounce of strength as dehumanization. I cannot think that choices of this kind are unimportant.

“When a theory is sufficiently general to cover many fields of application, it acquires some "truth" from each of them.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)
Context: When a theory is sufficiently general to cover many fields of application, it acquires some "truth" from each of them. Thus... a positive value for generalization in mathematics.

Stephen Wolfram photo

“Could it be that some place out there in the computational universe, we might find our physical universe?”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

"Computing a Theory of Everything" (2010)

Jerry Coyne photo
Elon Musk photo

“I believe there’s some explanation for this universe, which you might call God.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Axios, season 1, episode 4 (25 November 2018)

Related topics