Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.

If the world suffers from mental deterioration or from moral degradation, then something goes wrong at the very root of civilization or culture. Even though that civilization may drag out for a considerable period, it grows less and less vital and ultimately tumbles down.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

The crimes of extreme civilization are probably worse than those of extreme barbarism, because of their refinement, the corruption they presuppose, and their superior degree of intellectuality.

Western civilization, because of fortuitous historical circumstances, has spread itself more widely than any other local group that has so far been known.

The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilisers of man.

The civilized man is a larger mind but a more imperfect nature than the savage.