Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

We live in a bewildering world.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.

I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.

Cinema reflects culture and there is no harm in adapting technology, but not at the cost of losing your originality.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

I’m the proof – you can’t throw away tradition.

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

I don’t think even ungodly people realize what a society would be like that had no godly influence at all.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

I’ve been waiting over 40 years to come to Cyprus, and it has not disappointed – the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Crossroads of Civilization, and, I might add, a genuine strategic partner to the United States of America.

Money is kind of a base subject. Like water, food, air and housing, it affects everything yet for some reason the world of academics thinks it’s a subject below their social standing.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

If you’re not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.