In fact, the terrors that stem from our elaborate civilization may be far more threatening than those that primitive people attribute to demons.
civilizationquotes
Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.
beauty / civilization / cultural / necessity / use
It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct.
built / civilization / impossible / instinct
The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
civilization / gift / individual / Liberty
It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.
civilization / deserves / existence / revolt / unsatisfied
Experience teaches that for most people there is a limit beyond which their constitution cannot comply with the demands of civilization. All who wish to reach a higher standard than their constitution will allow, fall victims to neurosis. It would have been better for them if they could have remained less “perfect”.
civilization / constitution / experience / neurosis / perfect
I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind.
civilization / combine / Eros / mankind / unity
We are saying much the same thing when we derive the antithesis between civilization and sexuality from the circumstance that sexual love is a relationship between two individuals in which a third can only be superfluous or disturbing, whereas civilization depends on relationships between a considerable number of individuals.
civilization / individuals / love / relationships / sexuality
The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment. Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city.
aggression / civilization / ego / guilt / punishment
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, “Lighthouses” as the poet said “erected in the sea of time.” They are companions, teachers,magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.
books / change / civilization / humanity