Civilization Ending Quotes

There is not a name for what I'm feeling. There is no description for it.
To call it yearning would be like calling the ocean water.
Whatever this thing is, it shoves you inside itself and you can't measure its boundaries because they go too far and you don't have enough time. Or you move toward the boundaries and they move away.
There has been an earthquake in my life.
Catastrophic, civilization-ending. ~ R.A. Nelson

Civilization flows; culture thickens and coagulates, like tired, sick, stifled blood. ~ Edward Abbey

A nation of spaghetti eaters cannot restore Roman civilization! ~ Benito Mussolini

I knew this guy he'd been in a motorcycle accident and it really ruined him and he was a linesman working on the power
and he was working with someone who had Parkinsons so they both had complimentary inadeqacies and so two of them could do the job of one person
so they're out there fixing powerlines in the freezing cold despite the fact that one was three quarters wrecked and the other one had Parkinsons

That's how our civilization works, there's all these ruined people out there they've got problems like you can't believe,
off they go to work to do things they don't even like and look!
The Lights Are On ~ Jordan B. Peterson

You ask what my conclusions are, rereading my journals and looking back on World War II from the vantage point of quarter century in time? We won the war in a military sense; but in a broader sense, it seems to me we lost it, for our Western civilization is less respected and secure than it was before. ~ Charles Lindbergh

When I look back on my childhood, my earliest memories seem like artifacts from a long-lost civilization: half-understood fragments behind museum glass. ~ Matthew Flaming

Almost all wars, perhaps all, are trade wars connected with some material interest. They are always disguised as sacred wars, made in the name of God, or civilization or progress. But all of them, or almost all of the wars, have been trade wars. ~ Eduardo Galeano

Listen," he said, adopting a confidential tone. "I need to tell you one last thing before I go. Something I didn't figure out for myself until it was already too late." He led me over to the window and motioned out at the landscape stretching out beyond it. "I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?" "Yes," I said. "I think I do." "Good," he said, giving me a wink. "Don't make the same mistake I did. Don't hide in here forever. ~ Ernest Cline

But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions - and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives - then I plead guilty . . . And if we're talking about strong feelings that will never come again, I suppose it's possible to be nostalgic about remembered pain as well as remembered pleasure. And that opens up the field, doesn't it? ~ Julian Barnes

Fertility of the soil is the future of civilization. ~ Albert Howard

But you have told me," Elizabeth protested, "time and again, that the hallmark of civilization is routine."
Lady D shrugged and made a fussy little chirping sound. "A lady cannot take it upon herself to occasionally change her routine? All routines need periodic readjustment. ~ Julia Quinn

I honestly wish I could believe that things will end perfectly with one big bright happy ending. But these last few days have taught me that life isn't made up of shiny moments. Life is hard; it's gritty. One day you are filled with joy and the next, you are crawling through the muddy trenches with no inkling of when you might be able to climb your way back up again. ~Willow Mosby (Exposing ELE) ~ Rebecca Gober

Modern India is a product of Hindu tradition, the religion of Islam, and Western civilization. ~ Gurcharan Das

Civilization is human rights, it is the path of setting man free from men, phobia, to survive it, we must cultivate the science of human relationships. ~ Audrey Hepburn

Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Perusing colorful storylines on the backs of book jackets, I realized that none of them could possibly be as dramatic as my life to date. Then sadly, I also realized I could never find the ending of my story from the safety of an armchair. ~ Sarah Kay

It was very relaxing to be away from civilization, and this bothered me. I should not have found the loneliness so welcoming. ~ Stephenie Meyer

Do you think Western Civilization has come to an end?
"We are clearly going through a cultural crisis at the moment. It's a phase where we are trying to distinguish values of life. People are looking for a solution and perhaps they will find it. But the radicality of the search will change their view of life."
So there is a cultural crises?
"There is a general crisis, but it's not the end of the world.
But the crisis it total?
"And so what? The crisis means that now the world is at the bottom of a sinus curve. In the nature of things, it will now rise and fall again later. ~ Krzysztof Kieslowski

The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public - a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization - which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad. ~ Wilkie Collins

Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending. ~ Lemony Snicket

What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, 'They lived happily ever after,' and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year. ~ Scott Westerfeld

Elsa decides they should begin by taking the bus, like normal knights on normal quests in more or less normal fairytales when there aren't any horses or cloud animals available. But when all the other people at the bus stop starts eyeing The Monster and the wurse and nervously shuffling as far away from them as it's possible to be without ending up at the next bus stop, she realises it's not going to be quite so straightforward.
On boarding the bus it becomes immediately clear that wurses are not at all partial to travelling on public transport. After it had snuffled about and stepped on people's toes and overturned bags with its tail and accidently dribbled a bit on a seat a little too close to The Monster for The Monster to feel entirely comfortable, Elsa decides to forget the whole thing, and then all three of them get off. Exactly one stop later ~ Fredrik Backman

The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization. ~ Mercy Otis Warren

Wait a minute, I thought all girls liked those tragic love stories?" Isaac asked as we turned down another hall.
"I guess I'm weird." I shrugged. "I prefer a good happy ending to a story, there are enough tragic ones in real life. ~ B.L. Brunnemer

Actively, we are motivated by the never-ending desires of the self. We are compelled to pursue whatever the self imagines will satisfy its desires. We are convinced that satisfaction of desire is the source of true happiness.
Yet the very nature of desire does not permit happiness. Like trying to quench one's thirst by drinking salt water, satisfying desire only stimulates the flow of desire. In the wake of fulfillment, desire once more stirs and reaches out. There is never lasting satisfaction, not even completion. ~ Dharma Publishing

The result of civilization, at the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is said to be compensation
a very philosophical word; but it appears to be very much on the principle of the old game, "You lose, I win": good philosophy for the winner. ~ Herman Melville

Maybe civilization will collapse, we'll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we'll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There's no way to know. ~ Randall Munroe

You can't go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending. ~ James R. Sherman

Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards. ~ Jules Verne

...the delicate arrangements and systems that made life on the outside so easy; the massive industries balanced on knife-edge adjustments; the handful of men who kept it all running and the fewer who were able to improve it, add to it. Modern man was a parasite living off the fat of the past, living on the dividends of a few great brains. He did not gather his food or build his home or rear his children; his hands and his brain were soft; he consumed and manipulated and lived isolated and aloof from the natural world about him. It was comfortable, it was good, it was civilization; but it could vanish overnight if the mechanisms of fed it were destroyed. ~ William Mulvihill

Theirs is a civilization of deprivation; ours of finely balanced satisfaction ever teetering on the brink of excess. ~ Iain M. Banks

I never learned to say shit before a lady. I don't believe in progress in quite the way you seem to. You believe in it more than Grandmother did. As for those purely cultural patterns of convention you think I ought to escape from, they happen to add up to civilization, and I'd rather be civilized than tribal or uncouth. ~ Wallace Stegner

Beauty was worth
Its every sorrow, mind's fading or World's ending,
As darkness covered the garden that is the earth. ~ Hayden Carruth

to study the ambitions and appetites of a family launched upon the modern world, making superhuman efforts but always failing because of its own nature and the influences upon it, almost getting there only then to fall back again, and ending up by producing veritable moral monsters, the priest, the murderer, the artist. The times are in turmoil, and it is this turmoil of the moment which I shall depict. (vii) ~ Emile Zola

Do not yield to Satan's enticements; rather, stand firm for truth. The unsatisfied yearnings of the soul will not be met by a never-ending quest for joy amidst the thrills of sensation and vice. Vice never leads to virtue. Hate never promotes love. Cowardice never gives courage. Doubt never inspires faith. ~ Thomas S. Monson

...to imitate Western civilization in its spirit, its mode of life and its social organization is impossible without dealing a fatal blow to the very existence of Islam as an ideological proposition. ~ Muhammad Asad

Follow your gut, Storyteller, it will lead to your happy ending. ~ Isabel Greenberg

A Greek invention, democracy is highly overrated. For starters, it never worked in Greece. The first philosophers were fascists and, even today, 2,500 years later, the "cradle of Western civilization" remains an incompetent state. Roman emperors and a vengeful, authoritarian God are the true European success stories. ~ Thorsten J. Pattberg

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, top-scum stuff that people call 'civilization. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. ~ Carl Sagan

Glossa

Time goes by, time comes along,
All is old and all is new;
What is right and what is wrong,
You must think and ask of you;
Have no hope and have no fear,
Waves that rise can never hold;
If they urge or if they cheer,
You remain aloof and cold.

To our sight a lot will glisten,
Many sounds will reach our ear;
Who could take the time to listen
And remember all we hear?
Keep aside from all that patter,
Seek yourself, far from the throng
When with loud and idle clatter
Time goes by, time comes along.

Nor forget the tongue of reason
Or its even scales depress
When the moment, changing season,
Wears the mask of happiness -
It is born of reason's slumber
And may last a wink as true:
For the one who knows its number
All is old and all is new.

Be as to a play, spectator,
As the world unfolds before:
You will know the heart of matter
Should they act two parts or four;
When they cry or tear asunder
From your seat enjoy along
And you'll learn from art to wonder
What is right and what is wrong.

Past and future, ever blending,
Are the twin sides of same page:
New start will begin with ending
When you know to learn from age;
All that was or be tomorrow
We have in the present, too;
But what's vain and futile sorrow
You must think and ask of you;

~ Mihai Eminescu

It's instinctive in a certain kind of painting ... It's like a nervous system. It's not described, it's happening. The feeling is going on with the task. The line is the feeling, from a soft thing, a dreamy thing, to something hard, something arid, something lonely, something ending, something beginning. ~ Cy Twombly

No one dreamed them up. No one needed to. The vampire clawing at the window, the werewolf prowling the moor, the hags at the crossroads – they lurked here already. Some nightmares are ancient, as old as civilization. Some are older still. ~ Robert Dunbar VORTEX

Whether ... civilization has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man is a question that may be strongly contested," he wrote in 1795. "[Both] the most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized." When ~ Sebastian Junger