Barbarism Quotes

The rapidity with which one can completely change one's ideas ... and accommodate ourselves to a state of barbarism is wonderful. ~ Alfred Lansing

On the Gallows Once
Kofi Awoonor

I crossed quite a few
of your rivers, my gods,
into this plain where thirst reigns
I heard the cry of mourners
the long cooing of the African wren at dusk
the laughter of the children at dawn
had long ceased
night comes fast in our land
where indeed are the promised vistas
the open fields, blue skies, the singing birds
and abiding love?
History records acts
of heroism, barbarism
of some who had power
and abused it massively
of some whose progenitors
planned for them
the secure state of madness
from which no storm can shake them;
of some who took the last ships
disembarked on some far-off shores and forgot
of some who simply laid down the load
and went home to the ancestors ~ Kofi Awoonor

If mankind were to continue in other than the present barbarism, a new path must be found, a new civilization based on some other method than technology. ~ Clifford D. Simak

The modern secular state's capacity for barbarism exceeds any of the evils for which Christendom might justly be indicted, not ~ David Bentley Hart

We are creature of darkness and light, capable of barbarism and limitless cruelty, and also love, and laughter and the creation of the most sublime beauty. We are both these things, clearly, but which are we more of? ~ Mark Frost

The lowest form of barbarism is smugly to berate someone for extending an act of kindness. ~ Perry Brass

And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Let your observations and comparisons produce in your mind an abhorrence of domination and power, the parent of slavery, ignorance, and barbarism, which places man upon a level with his fellow tenants of the woods. ~ Abigail Adams

Hunting is a relic of the barbarism that once thirsted for human blood, but is now content with the blood of animals. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. ~ Edward Gibbon

I yearn to see other chief executives throughout the nation follow suit, so that as a people we may hasten the elimination of barbarism as a tool of American justice. ~ Winthrop Rockefeller

Consider the bloody history of Europe: there was a great aspiration for high culture, yet this very same culture was shaped by brutality and barbarism. ~ Ori Gersht

we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary, - the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such ~ Plato

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. ~ Denis Diderot

Bacon first taught the world the true method of the study of nature, and rescued science from that barbarism in which the followers of Aristotle, by a too servile imitation of their master. ~ Thomas Young

An acquaintance with the great works of art and thought is the only real insurance against the barbarism of the time. ~ Edmund Wilson

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ~ John Buchan

The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry. ~ George Berkeley

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces.
You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew.
I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it. ~ Iain Pears

Muhammad Iqbal, who had spent three rewarding years as a student in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century, now wrote of it in the satirical tradition of the Illahabadi:
The West develops wonderful new skills
In this as in so many other fields
Its submarines are crocodiles
Its bombers rain destruction from the skies
Its gases so obscure the sky
They blind the sun's world-seeing eye
Dispatch this old fool to the West
To learn the art of killing fast- and best
On his previous trips to the West, Liang, like Tagore and Iqbal, had been a qualified admirer. During his longest sojourn there, he began to develop grave doubts about the civilization that had so blithely thrown away the fruits of progress and rationalism and sunk into barbarism. The 'materialist' West had managed to subdue nature through science and technology and created a Darwinian universe of conflict between individuals, classes and nations. But to what effect? Its materialistic people, constantly desiring ever-new things and constantly being frustrated, were worn out by war, were afflicted with insecurity, and were as far from happiness as ever. ~ Pankaj Mishra

If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity. ~ Nelson DeMille

Centuries of barbarism, insecurity and war had to intervene before man could defile his God with attributes of undying vengeance and inexhaustible cruelty. ~ Will Durant

Friedrich Engels once said: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism." What does "regression into barbarism" mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. ~ Rosa Luxemburg

When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements ... while remaining heedless of the world's barbarism. I don't say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn't notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be. ~ Julian Barnes

It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism. ~ Denis Diderot

People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater. ~ Kenneth Clark

Cadogan Place is the one slight bond that joins two great extremes; it is the connecting link between the aristocratic pavements of Belgrave Square, and the barbarism of Chelsea. ~ Charles Dickens

I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil. ~ Charles Mayo

Deep knowledge is not knowledge of the thing itself, but knowledge of a thing like the thing. Then, you gain not one knowledge, but two knowledges. Of the thing. And of the original thing with is like the thing. Which is the barbarism of the privileged class. ~ George Bernard Shaw

There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war. ~ Amelia Earhart

The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery! ~ Robert E. Howard

Back through the ages of barbarism and civilization, in all tongues, we find this instinctive pleasure in the imitative action that is the very essence of all drama. ~ George Pierce Baker

Even at that time the hope of leaving behind messages in bottles on the flood of barbarism bursting on Europe was an amiable illusion: the desperate letters stuck in the mud of the spirit of rejuvenesence and were worked up by a band of Noble Human-Beings and other riff-raff into highly artistic but inexpensive wall-adornments. Only since then has progress in communications really got into its stride. Who, in the end, is to take it amiss if even the freest of free spirits no longer write for an imaginary posterity, more trusting, if possible, than even their contemporaries, but only for the dead God? ~ Theodor W. Adorno

This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism. ~ Immanuel Kant

To all those who I do not know, and who live in the worlds where superstition and barbarism are still dominant, and into whose hands I hope this little book may fall, I offer the modest encouragement of an older wisdom. It is in fact this, and not any arrogant preaching that come to us out of the whirlwind: "Die stimme der vernunft ist leise". Yes, The voice of reason is very soft, but it is very persistent.
In this, and in the lives and minds of combatants known and unknown, we repose our chief hope. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

I hope Lily told you how happy I was by the offer to marry your commander."
"She mentioned it," Ranulf grimaced.
"Who knows? Maybe Rolande and I will meet and decide to stay together, forgoing the annulment."
Ranulf rocked back on his feet, picking up the basin, and stood up, causing water to slosh on to the floor from the abrupt movement. She sounded so damn happy. He plopped the water bowl back on its table. And why shouldn't she be? "You will like my commander. He is as handsome as Lillabet is beautiful."
Pain flashed in Bronwyn's eyes, turning them dark, almost black. If Ranulf's aim had been to hurt,he had struck true, resulting in a desire to inflict similar anguish. "As long as he doesn't lie to me and make me out the fool, I will be content."
"I suspect he won't if you don't lie to him first."
Bronwyn pushed herself out of the chair as a frisson of anger shot up her spine. "Maybe I won't if he doesn't order me away from my home without the courage to look me in the eye when he does so."
"I never pretended to be someone else."
"In that you are correct, my lord.You made it very clear from the beginning that you were a hateful man," she seethed.
"Didn't seem to bother you when you used your female wiles to entice me to your bed," Ranulf hissed back.
Bronwyn marched over to the door and swung it wide open. "I wonder just how my sister will deal with your barbarism. She is sweet,beautiful, and innocent,but she also knows no ~ Michele Sinclair

Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy)
Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism)
Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism)
Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic) ~ Immanuel Kant

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. ~ Adam Smith

Indifference to the fine arts comes close to barbarism. ~ Karl Friedrich Schinkel

You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books. ~ Sam Harris

Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. ~ Jon Krakauer

If our sides were unequal our angles might be unequal. Instead of its being sufficient to feel, or estimate by sight, a single angle in order to determine the form of an individual, it would be necessary to ascertain each angle by the experiment of Feeling. But life would be too short for such a tedious groping. The whole science and art of Sight Recognition would at once perish; Feeling, so far as it is an art, would not long survive; intercourse would become perilous or impossible; there would be an end to all confidence, all forethought; no one would be safe in making the most simple social arrangements; in a word, civilization would relapse into barbarism. ~ Edwin A. Abbott

Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind, independent of the prevalent one among the crowds, and in opposition to it - a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals. ~ Albert Schweitzer

It is necessary for the oppressors to approach the people in order, via subjugation, to keep them passive. This approximation, however, does not involve being with the people, or require true communication. It is accomplished by the oppressors' depositing myths indispensable to the preservation of the status quo: for example, the myth that the oppressive order is a "free society"; the myth that all persons are free to work where they wish, that if they don't like their boss they can leave him and look for another job; the myth that this order respects human rights and is therefore worthy of esteem; the myth that anyone who is industrious can become an entrepreneur--worse yet, the myth that the street vendor is as much an entrepreneur as the owner of a large factory; the myth of the universal right of education, when of all the Brazilian children who enter primary schools only a tiny fraction ever reach the university; the myth of the equality of all individuals, when the question: "Do you know who you're talking to?" is still current among us; the myth of the heroism of the oppressor classes as defenders of "Western Christian civilization" against "materialist barbarism"; the myth of the charity and generosity of the elites, when what they really do as a class is to foster selective "good deeds" (subsequently elaborated into the myth of "disinterested aid," which on the international level was severely criticized by Pope John XXIII); the myth that the dominant elites, "recogn ~ Paulo Freire

The age in which we live can only be characterized as one of barbarism. Our civilization is in the process not only of being militarized, but also being brutalized. ~ Alva Myrdal

The Magyars were claimed to be descendants of the hideous Asiatic Scythians of legend, half men and half apes, a witches' brood begotten by devils. The sources - chronicles and annals - were all copied from one another, not on the basis of eyewitness accounts but following the characterisation of older chroniclers. Soon the "new barbarians" became identified with the Huns, who are remembered only too well in Europe. Attila had, after all, become in Western eyes the embodiment of barbarism, the anti-Christ, and at the time of the Renaissance he already appeared in Italian legends as the king of the Hungarians, constantly hatching plots, and depicted with dog ears, the bestial offspring of a greyhound and a princess locked up in a tower.12 ~ Paul Lendvai

Those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. ~ Bertolt Brecht

Ever since the first caveman discovered fire and decided that the ones still living in darkness were benighted, it's been civilization against barbarism . . . with every age having its own barbarians. Nothing ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

Extreme civilization robs crime of its frightful poetry, and prevents the writer from restoring it. That would be too dreadful, say those good souls who want everything to be prettified, even the horrible. In the name of philanthropy, imbecile criminologists reduce the punishment, and inept moralists the crime, and what is more they reduce the crime only in order to reduce the punishment. Yet the crimes of extreme civilization are undoubtedly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism, by virtue of their refinement, of the corruption they imply and of their superior degree of intellectualism. ("A Woman's Vengeance") ~ Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly

Even their stable societies oscillated between banquets and barbarism. ~ Gregory Benford

Chaos and barbarism, which always threatened to overwhelm the movement, sharply increased as bin Laden took the helm. ~ Lawrence Wright

Fanaticism is just one step away from barbarism. ~ Denis Diderot

As I have said, it may be difficult to define civilization, but it isn't so difficult to recognize barbarism. ~ Kenneth Clark

The voices of peace can't be silenced by bombs, shootings, sieges, brutality and barbarism. Despite the challenges we face as peace-makers in a troubled region, all we want is peace and our campaign #WeWantPeace continues. ~ Widad Akreyi

Nothing but the natural ignorance of the public, countenanced by the inoculated erroneousness of the ordinary general medical practitioners, makes such a barbarism as vaccination possible ... Recent developments have shown that an inoculation made in the usual general practitioner's light-hearted way, without previous highly skilled examination of the state of the patient's blood, is just as likely to be a simple manslaughter as a cure or preventive. But vaccination is nothing short of attempted murder. A skilled bacteriologist would just as soon think of cutting his child's arm and rubbing the contents of the dustpan into the wound, as vaccinating it in the same. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Civilization is only skin deep, and so is barbarism. Had your country never broken its word and been as just as it is powerful, your red men would have been to-day where our brown men are - our equals." An ~ Rounsevelle, 1864-1901 Wildman

History is barbaric to me because it omits all traces of the personal. ~ Marty Rubin

The urban barbarism that has turned our streets into battlegrounds and our classrooms into killing fields will not be stopped by an assault on the Second Amendment right of American gunowners to keep and bear arms. ~ Pat Buchanan

You cannot win the war. You will seem to win but it will be an illusion. You will win the battles, kill billions, rape Worlds, take slaves, and destroy ships and weapons. But after that you will be forced to hold the subjection. Your numbers will not be expendable. You will be spread thin, exposed to other cultures that will influence you, change you. You will lose skirmishes, and in the end you will be forced back. Then will come a loss of old ethics, corruption and opportunism will replace your honor and you will know unspeakable shame and dishonor... your culture will soon be weltering back into a barbarism and disorganization which in its corruption and despair will be nothing like the proud tribal primitive life of its first barbarism. You will be aware of the difference and unable to return. ~ Charles V. De Vet

All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labor ... Where the different kinds of work are not distinguished and divided, where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest barbarism. ~ Immanuel Kant

But those who initially went to the West were overtaken by the barbarism of the frontier with astonishing speed - think Lord of the Flies or Heart of Darkness. There was murder, mayhem, robbery, alcoholism, depression, and suicide, and all of it on a positively Homeric scale that still has cultural anthropologists enraptured. ~ Simon Winchester

First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The idea of Socialism is at once grandiose and simple ... We may say, in fact, that it is one of the most ambitious creations of the human spirit, ... so magnificent, so daring, that it has rightly aroused the greatest admiration. If we wish to save the world from barbarism we have to refute Socialism, but we cannot thrust it carelessly aside. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind, ~ Robert E. Howard

No nation has its own culture, only its own barbarism. ~ Kustaa Vilkuna

Emerging from barbarism is a slow process and as man is , geologically speaking, still very young, he has his whole future before him. ~ Theodore Monod

I was enraged by these heinous acts of barbarism - enraged that people who called themselves Muslims could launch an unprovoked attack on Christians or foreigners, enraged that through their vile acts these terrorists were perverting our faith, which tells us that Christians are among the "people of the Book", that we should show discernment when fighting for the cause of God and not fight those who have not harmed us, that murder and suicide are grievous sins. ~ Pervez Musharraf

You fought well on Mona, my Mules, but I have brought you here for a little more javelin practice.' The words carried along the line and Valerius could see men grinning at the unlikely familiarity. 'Those who stand before you have murdered, tortured and raped Roman citizens, men, women and children; innocents whose only crime was to attempt to bring civilization to this land. They butchered and mutilated your comrades of the Ninth, and the brave veterans of Colonia who fell defending the Temple of Divine Claudius.' He paused and the silence was filled by a growl, like an enormous dog gathering itself for the attack. 'We offered them our friendship, our trust and our aid, and they took all with smiles of thanks, but when we turned our backs they reached for the knife and the sword and the spear, as is their way. They believe you are already defeated.' 'No!' The massed roar carried across the valley and echoed from the banks. 'They are the true face of barbarism. They are your enemy. They show no mercy and they deserve no mercy. Give them none. For Rome!'
'For Rome!' The words erupted from ten thousand throats and Valerius felt the ice in his belly melt and the first stirrings of life return to his heart.
'For Rome,' he whispered. ~ Douglas Jackson

If a plague carried off the members of a society all at once, it is obvious that the group would be permanently done for. Yet the death of each of its constituent members is as certain as if an epidemic took them all at once. But the graded difference in age, the fact that some are born as some die, makes possible through transmission of ideas and practices the constant reweaving of the social fabric. Yet this renewal is not automatic. Unless pains are taken to see that genuine and thorough transmission takes place, the most civilized group will relapse into barbarism and then into savagery. ~ John Dewey

The Roman clergy thus adopted the old aristocracy's ideal of libertas, which had little to do with freedom; rather, it referred to the maintenance of the privileged position of the ruling class, lest society lapse into barbarism. ~ Karen Armstrong

A society remotely worth its salt eventually has to come to grips with the barbarism practiced upon helpless creatures in the name of scientific experimentation, tastier/tenderer meat, or more and larger eggs! ~ William Kunstler

We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it's all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It's the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians. ~ Bertolt Brecht

[W]e are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters... A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana.

...

We too shall in our turn be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they are now to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, and will sooner or later take Belgium
by that same right Germany takes over Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as against stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark's favor
which is very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements, for it is the right of historical evolution. ~ Friedrich Engels

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. Even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In, short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these and all who work for them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine. ~ Thucydides

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife ... Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment ... ~ Nikola Tesla

By the middle twentieth century, few European nation-states had not at one time or another figured themselves as 'the outpost of Western Christian civilisation': France, imperial Germany, the Habsburg Reich, Poland with its self-image as przedmurze (bastion), even tsarist Russia. Each of these nation-state myths identified "barbarism" as the condition or ethic of their immediate eastward neighbour: for the French, the Germans were barbarous, for the Germans it was the Slavs, for the Poles the Russians, for the Russians the Mongol and Turkic peoples of Central Asia and eventually the Chinese. ~ Neal Ascherson

We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris-
ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be
expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have
been far more impressed by the bad manners of par-
ents to children than by those of children to parents.
Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family
meals where the father or mother treated their
grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered
to any other young people, would simply have termi-
nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat-
ters which the children understand and their elders
don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions,
ridicule of things the young take seriously some-
times of their religion insulting references to their
friends, all provide an easy answer to the question
"Why are they always out? Why do they like every
house better than their home?" Who does not prefer
civility to barbarism? ~ C.S. Lewis

So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and that of their neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own. ~ John Stuart Mill

The language of sword is less powerful than the language of word, but most of
the people understand the language of sword with greater power than the
language of word. ~ Kedar Joshi

I regard the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the same as I do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth, a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good sense. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

And truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism. When those in power intend to abuse that power, they look to an outside enemy in order to trick their people into pressing the means to their own abuse into the hands of the abusers. If an enemy does not exist, it will be manufactured, and all manner of horrors attributed to it, so that anyone who demands truth and accountability is set upon as being unpatriotic. And so that, when someone said to be an enemy is found, there will be few questions asked about guilt or innocence, and many faces averted when he is taken away. ~ Mercedes Lackey

Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person.Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. ~ Saul Bellow

The German settlers would defend Europe itself at the Ural Mountains, against the Asiatic barbarism that would be forced back to the east. Strife at civilization's edge would test the manhood of coming generations of German settlers. ~ Timothy Snyder

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever. ~ Sinclair Lewis

The creed of evil has been, since the beginnings of highly industrialized society, not only a precursor of barbarism but a mask of good. The worth of the latter was transferred to the evil that drew to itself all the hatred and resentment of an order which drummed good into its adherents so that it could with impunity be evil. ~ Theodor Adorno

Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

As in the fine arts, the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilisation is marked by a gradual succession of triumphs over the rude materialities of nature, so in the art of cookery is the progress gradual from the earliest and simplest modes, to those of the most complicated and refined. ~ Isabella Beeton

What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world. And yet this full stature of greatness came to pass at a time when the mighty civilizations of the ancient world had perished and the shadow of "effortless barbarism" was dark upon the earth. In that black and fierce world a little centre of white-hot spiritual energy was at work. A new civilization had arisen in Athens, unlike all that had gone before. ~ Edith Hamilton

Men of action must be led by men of virtue, else there is no honor, merely chaos and barbarism. ~ Curtis Craddock

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. ~ Thomas Sowell

Fear believes - courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays - courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism - courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion, courage is science. ~ Dale McGowan