Civilization ceases when we no longer respect and no longer put into their correct places the fundamental values, such as work, family and country such as the individual, honor and religion.

In the advance of civilization, it is new knowledge which paves the way, and the pavement is eternal.

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Civilization is being poisoned by its own waste products

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.

Civilization is hideously fragile and there's not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.