Civilized Nations Quotes:

The social problem of the twentieth century is whether civilized nations can restore themselves to sanity after their nineteenth-century aberrations of individualism and capitalism.

- Albion Woodbury Small

source: 1914 'A Vision of Social Efficiency', in the American Journal of Sociology, Jan.

topic: Civilized Nations, Aberration, Problem, Social Problems

The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.

- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

source: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1945). “Hegel's Philosophy of right”

topic: Sacrifice, Important, Civilized Nations, Mettle, Readiness

Justice is the great interest of man on earth.

- Daniel Webster

source: Oration on day of Justice Story's funeral, Boston, Mass., 12 Sept. 1845

topic: Men, Justice, Civilized Nations, Law And Justice, Criminal Justice

Those who say [Joseph] Padilla should get a civilian trial are essentially saying that if you reject the rules of civilized nations, like those inscribed in the Geneva Convention, you therefore deserve to be treated better, not worse, than those rules require.

- Jonah Goldberg

topic: Civilized Nations, Trials, Should, Geneva Convention

All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.

- Sam Harris

source: "Sam Harris, the New Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus" by Glenn Greenwald, www.theguardian.com. April 3, 2013.

topic: Civilized Nations, Earth, Condemnation

A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.

- Herbert V. Prochnow

topic: War, Mars, Visitors, God Of War, Civilized Nations

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Pregnancy, Society, Church, Civilized Nations

Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

- Samuel Johnson

source: Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

topic: Names, Giving, Needs, Opulence, Civilized Nations

GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Angel, Science, Agency, Civilized Nations, Convincing Evidence

Since art is dead in the actual life of civilized nations, it has been relegated to these grotesque morgues, museums.

- Walter Gropius

topic: Art, Museums, Grotesque, Actual Life, Civilized Nations

During practically all of my public life, I have been a sincere advocate of an agreement between the leading nations of the world to set up all the necessary international machinery that would bring about a practical abolition of war between civilized nations.

- George W. Norris

topic: War, Agreement, World, Abolition, Civilized Nations

An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.

- H. L. Mencken

source: H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.466, Vintage

topic: Men, Artist, Self, Flapping, Civilized Nations

Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations.

- Jeane Kirkpatrick

topic: Crime, Civilized, Civilized Nations

[T]he most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views.

- James Madison

source: The Federalist no. 10 (1788)

topic: Growing Up, Fall, Views, Factions, Creditors

As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.

- James Madison

source: James Madison, Robert Allen Rutland (2008). “The Papers of James Madison: 8 February-24 October 1813”

topic: War, Justice, Humanity, Civilized Nations

I was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations.

- Jean Chretien

topic: Morning, Rights, Evil, Depraved, Civilized Nations

Judaism is not a passive religion, but an active life factor which has coalesced with the national consciousness into one organic whole. It is primarily the expression of a nationality whose history for thousands of years coincides with the history of the development of a humanity and the Jews are a nation which, having once acted as the leaven of the social world, is destined to be resurrected with the rest of civilized nations.

- Moses Hess

source: Moses Hess (1943). “The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem, the Last Nationalist Question”, p.49, U of Nebraska Press

topic: Expression, Years, Humanity, Active Life, Civilized Nations

The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.

- Naguib Mahfouz

topic: Law, Civilized, Civilized Nations

The man who stands upon his own soil, who feels, by the laws of the land in which he lives,-by the laws of civilized nations,-he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, is, by the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome influence, not easily imbibed from any other source.

- Edward Everett

topic: Men, Law, Land, Civilized Nations

Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us.

- William Wilberforce

topic: Thinking, Views, Looks, Depravity, Civilized Nations

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

- Daniel Webster

topic: Men, Justice, Together, Administration Of Justice, Civilized Nations

There is as yet no civilized society, but only a society in the process of becoming civilized. There is as yet no civilized nation, but only nations in the process of becoming civilized. From this standpoint, we can now speak of a collective task of humankind. The task of humanity is to build a genuine civilization.

- Felix Adler

topic: Civilization, Humanity, Growth, Standpoint, Civilized Nations

How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilized nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy!

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2016). “The Pickwick Papers: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, p.310, Pan Macmillan

topic: Religious, Struggle, Blessed, Reunited, Civilized Nations

The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.170, Simon and Schuster

topic: Nature, Father, Rome, Marrow, Civilized Nations

And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget--the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature.

- James Joyce

topic: Perfect, Water, Humanity, English Literature, Civilized Nations

I was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received, and heard him muse incredulously: "An old-fashioned naval battle. A war between two civilized nations, perhaps with even a declaration of war, and later a peace conference. Wow." No hostages, no nukes, no ideologies, no religious fanaticism; just a fair-and-square war over national interests - hard to believe, in this day and age.

- William Safire

topic: Religious, Peace, War, Declaration Of War, Nukes

Torture, including practices like waterboarding, violates the legal and moral standards of all civilized nations.

- Jerrold Nadler

source: "No More Clever Wordplay on Torture" by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 15, 2007.

topic: Practice, Moral, Standards, Civilized Nations

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

source: John Stuart Mill (2016). “Principles of Political Economy: Mill's Works”, p.251, VM eBooks

topic: Country, Independent, Peculiar, Independent Country, Civilized Nations

Whatever happens in the country, whatever warfare harasses our land, we will never relinquish our hold on Western learning. As long as this school of ours stands, Japan remains a civilized nation of the world.

- Fukuzawa Yukichi

source: Yukichi Fukuzawa, Eiichi Kiyooka (1966). “The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa”, p.211, Columbia University Press

topic: Country, School, Japan, Civilized Nations

Of all the nations in the Western world, the United States, with the most money and the most time, has the fewest readers of books per capita. This is an incalculable loss. This, too, is one of the few civilized nations in the world which is unable to support a single magazine devoted solely to books.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

topic: Book, Reading, Loss, Western World, Civilized Nations

Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.

- Elie Wiesel

topic: Children, People, Murder, Civilized Nations

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

- Alfred Nobel

topic: Military, War, Army, Recoil, Civilized Nations

A civilized nation can have no enemies, and one cannot draw a line across a map, a line that doesn't even exist in nature and say that the ugly enemy lives on the one side, and good friends live on the other.

- Thor Heyerdahl

topic: Best Friend, Good Friend, Enemy, Civilized Nations