Quotes about civilisation
A collection of quotes on the topic of civilisation, world, human, humanity.
Quotes about civilisation

Source: Reflections of Humanity, (1984), p. 17: Second paragraph.

Source: Review of Zest for Life by Johann Wöller, in Time and Tide (17 October 1936)

Source: "As I Please," Tribune (4 August 1944)
http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/

Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism (1912); quoted in Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb by Rod Preece (Routledge, 2002), p. 344 https://books.google.it/books?id=Mf6TAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344.

on the topic of hand-drawn animation (2005) The Guardian article http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/14/japan.awardsandprizes
On Animation

Quoted in Strength and Diet https://books.google.it/books?id=uexsAAAAMAAJ by Francis Albert Rollo Russell (London: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1905), p. 2.

Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton : The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (1986), p. 191


Summing up the documentation Wonders of the Solar System, episode 5

Source: 1950s, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), p. 220

But both recognise the limitations of possibility.
Letter to Woodburn Harris (25 February-1 March 1929), in Selected Letters II, 1925-1929 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 289-290
Non-Fiction, Letters

As cited in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books 1994, p. 11

On the Conservative Party; Skidelsky (1992:231) quoting Collected Writings Volume IX page 296-297

As quoted in Japan-zone http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/tezuka_osamu.shtml

Unpublished (and probably unsent) letter to the Providence Journal (13 April 1934), quoted in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy, edited by J. T. Joshi, pp. 115-116
Non-Fiction, Letters

Letter to Lucy Martin Donnely, July 6, 1902
1900s

Letter to James F. Morton (8 March 1923), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 211-212
Non-Fiction, Letters

Letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, (28 December 1846), Rue d'Orleans, 42, Faubourg Namur, Marx Engels Collected Works Vol. 38, p. 95; International Publishers (1975). First Published: in full in the French original in M.M. Stasyulevich i yego sovremenniki v ikh perepiske, Vol. III, 1912

Source: Speech at the opening of Shaftesburgh Park Estate (18 July 1874), cited in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Collected from his Writings and Speeches (1881), p. 38.

Speech at the Nazi party Congress at Nuremberg (September 1935) http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb58.htm
1930s

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/B&W.html, later published in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1871) Comments accepting many racist and sexist assumptions made in the context of rejecting oppressions based on racist and sexist arguments. More information is available at the Talk Origins Archive http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005_3.html
1860s

Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 207
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 5: The Hero as Artist
The benign catastrophist (2003)

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. The first question and the last which it has to answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit than a machine? Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own love of freedom and fair-play. Civilisation can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form. For that by which alone man is true can only be nourished by love and justice.

you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.
2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Closing Address by His Highness the Aga Khan at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, (17 October 2007) http://www.akdn.org/Content/244
Context: The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West… The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. The first question and the last which it has to answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit than a machine? Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own love of freedom and fair-play. Civilisation can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form. For that by which alone man is true can only be nourished by love and justice.

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Albert Einstein in a letter to his cousin and second wife Elsa, during a visit to the University of Oxford, in collection donated to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel by Einstein's stepdaughter Margot, as quoted in "Einstein in no-sock shock" http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9555&feedId=online-news_rss20, New Scientist (15 July 2006)
Attributed in posthumous publications

“The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.”
Source: Les Misérables

“Civilisation is the distance that man has placed between himself and his own excreta.”
Source: The Dark Light Years

Bryant v. Foot (1867), 15 W. R. 425; S. C. L. R. 2 Q. B. Ca. 179.

Non-Fiction, English Literature: A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974)

"A Word of Explanation" on his work Hind Swaraj (1908) in Young India (January 1921)
1920s

Source: The Modern Rack (1889), Ch. I: The Moral Aspects of Vivisection, p. 15

"A Word To Rioting Muslims" (20 September 2012) http://youtube.com/watch?v=GCXHPKhRCVg
2012
Anwar Shaikh (1998). Anwar Shaikh's Islam, the Arab imperialism. Cardiff: Principality Publishers.

Last broadcast (11 October 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 454.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1967/jul/03/clause-8-restrictions-on-prosecution in the House of Commons in favour of the Bill decriminalising homosexuality (3 July 1967).
1960s

Source: J. A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study: A Centennial Retrospective (2002), p. 8

Vol. 2, bk. 7, ch. 5
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Between India and Sri Lanka, quoted on Leader Call (February 11, 2016), "Sushma Swaraj calls on Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghe" http://leadercall.com/2016/02/sushma-swaraj-calls-on-sri-lankan-pm-ranil-wickremesinghe/

Statement on his admiration of the Eastern Orthodox traditions (1982), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 207

The Guardian, 23 October 2004, Dumb show, http://home.valornet.com/rolandtignor/demoncrats20.htm http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-barack-america-1981504-new-first
Guardian columns

Undelivered presidential address for the session of Indian Congress held at Ahmedabad in December 1921. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
1921

Speech, Foresters' Hall, Dalkeith, Scotland (26 November 1879) as part of the Midlothian campaign; published in "Mr Gladstone's visit to Mid-Lothian: Meeting at the Foresters' Hall" (27 November 1879), The Scotsman, p. 6; also quoted in Life of Gladstone (1903) by John Morley, II, (p. 595)
1870s

Speech delivered at Delhi University Convocation on 13th December 1952.

Angela Merkel's speech about Holocaust (Shoah).
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 24.04.2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jEkBPcVj4
2017

"We Must Fight Iraq" http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12227453&method=full&siteid=50143, Daily Mirror (2002-09-25): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2002, We Must Fight Iraq (2002)

"Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization, The Guardian, February 20, 2011.

My bright idea: Civilisation is still worth striving for

1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)

A Fragment on Progress (1891)

“Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away.”
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Telling (2000), Ch. 2, §2 (p. 32)

referring to Arthur Balfour's A Fragment on Progress https://books.google.com/books?id=voxJAAAAYAAJ (1891)
The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)

Daedalus or Science and the Future (1923)
Variant: The conservative has little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires.

On the British government's decision to build the Singapore Naval Base, in an article for the Westminster Gazette (13 October 1923)

"Spirituality for democracy and social cohesion versus the spirituality of money," Verbum et Ecclesia 35(3) http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v35i3.1332

As Prime Minister in Parliament on 3 February 1960, in his impromptu reply to Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech, 10 quotes by Hendrik Verwoerd (Politics Web) https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/hendrik-verwoerd-10-quotes-hendrik-verwoerd-politics-web-20-september-2016, sahistory.org.za (20 September 2016)

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352
Third term as Prime Minister

13 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)

Speech in Belmont (25 January 1907), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London: Constable, 1973), p. 588
Prime Minister

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.