“In Western Civilization, our elders are books.”

—  Gary Snyder

Source: The Practice of the Wild: Essays

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In Western Civilization, our elders are books." by Gary Snyder?
Gary Snyder photo
Gary Snyder 23
American poet 1930

Related quotes

Camille Paglia photo

“Everything great in western civilization has come from struggling against our origins.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 40
Context: The book of Genesis is a male declaration of independence from the ancient mother-cults. Its challenge to nature, so sexist to modern ears, marks one of the crucial moments in western history. Mind can never be free of matter. Only by mind imagining itself free can culture advance. The mother-cults, by reconciling man to nature, entrapped him in matter. Everything great in western civilization has come from struggling against our origins. Genesis is rigid and unjust, but it gave man hope as a man. It remade the world by male dynasty, canceling the power of mothers.

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer
Kofi Annan photo

“My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilization — or Eastern, for that matter. All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)
Context: My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilization — or Eastern, for that matter. All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.
You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?
Surely not. More than ever today, Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world’s peoples can face global challenges together. And in order to function more effectively, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition.
I hope and pray that the American leaders of today, and tomorrow, will provide it.

Mortimer J. Adler photo

“The books to be read should not be limited to those written in English…. Instead it should be devoted to the great works of history, biography, philosophy, theology, natural science, social science, and mathematics, as well as the… tradition of Western literature -- in English translation… Its aim should not be a survey of Western civilization, but an effort to understand the basic ideas and issues in Western thought.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 316

Eileen Myles photo

“Listen, I have been educated.
I have learned about Western
Civilization. Do you know
What the message of Western
Civilization is? I am alone.”

Eileen Myles (1949) American poet
Elia M. Ramollah photo

“There are a lot to learn in both Eastern and western civilizations. If we summarize the Western civilization to American civilization and take it as an example, we can better understand the vast area of knowledge that the East can pick up and learn from it. Likewise, the Westerners have to look up to the Eastern civilizations to get new and more inner or spiritual ideas in every dimension of life.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

360 Doctrines and Comprehensive Theories, Union of Civilizations

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo

“The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

1890s, The Path of the Law (1897)

“Nineteen forty-five marked the nadir of Western Civilization.”

Modris Eksteins (1943) Canadian historian

Quoted by Paul Fussell. The Boys' Crusade. Random House, New York, 2003. pg xv. ISBN: 0-679-64088-6

George Soros photo

“I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts…”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros (2006) by Mark Tier, p. 219
Context: I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts... I would value it much more highly than any business success if I could contribute to an understanding of the world in which we live or, better yet, if I could help to preserve the economic and political system that has allowed me to flourish as a participant.

Related topics