Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. John Buchan
Civilisation and profits go hand in hand. Calvin Coolidge, speech 27th November 1920
Civilisation is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s noble existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilisation is the process of setting man free from men. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead 1947
Civilisation is what makes you sick. Paul Gauguin
Modern industrial civilisation has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilisation has been individual material gain. Professor Noam Chomsky
The West is hated for good reason. Noam Chomsky, interview March 2011
There’s an almost remarkable tendency to not mention imperialism as shaping the contours of Western civilisation in literary criticism and historical writing. Noam Chomsky, lecture US Terrorism, 5th Annual Edward Said lecture, Columbia University School, Youtube 1.03.46
Civilisation is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort. Jose Ortega y Gasset, La Rebelion de las Masas
Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life-blood of real civilization. G M Trevelyan, English Social History
Never before has a civilisation reached such a degree of a contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live. Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life 1967, re 1960s
Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics, 1911
The three great elements of modern civilisation: Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion. Thomas Carlyle
Without power technologically based civilisation cracks up rapidly. James Burke, Connections s1e1: The Trigger Effect, BBC 1978
Any one of a million things could fail and cause our complex civilisation to collapse for an hour, a day, however long. ibid.
It’s so inter-dependent. ibid.
You have to have a plough. ibid.
With regular food supplies the population explodes. ibid.
And so the little villages grew with their huts and their granaries. ibid.
Kuwait represents the immense power of technology used in a way most of us has never experienced ... Kuwait has suddenly become like New York, totally dependent on that technology. ibid.
Never have so many people understood so little about so much. ibid.
I would say that is was a pretty safe bet that one magic wish most people would like to be granted would be to see into the future, James Burke, Connections s1e2: Death in the Morning
At no time in the past did anybody who had anything to do with the business of inventing or changing things ever know what the full effect of his actions would be ... That’s how change comes about. And it’s like a detective story. ibid.
All over the eastern Mediterranean and Persia the habit spread of accepting metal for payment. ibid.
The temperature doesn’t decrease steadily as you rise in the sky, nor does the air pressure. ibid.
Wilson the magic cloud maker got really turned on by really bad weather. ibid.
Today the nuclear bomb is like a Sword of Damocles hanging over us. ibid.
This is the nightmare of the second half of the twentieth century: a suitcase with an atomic bomb inside it. Once you steal the nuclear material any physics graduate can do the rest. James Burke, Connections s1e3: Distant Voices 1978
The nightmare is what the result will be. ibid.
The longbow would kill at four hundred yards ... A terrifying weapon. ibid.
You make gunpowder from urine and dung. ibid.
The exciting new way of killing people ... Few inventions have been greedily seized on as the cannon. ibid.
It’s because we can communicate so easily that change happened so fast. ibid.
The Church: it had a fully functioning network of communications from Bishop to Bishop throughout Europe ... The Church then was like our communications system now. James Burke, Connections s1e4: Faith in Numbers
Within a century there were nearly six hundred Cistercian monasteries. ibid.
They had no defence against the enemy – it was a flea ... At the height of the plague there were not enough living to bury the dead ... The Black Death. ibid.
The coming of the book changed everything. ibid.
The new books standardised spelling. ibid.
But the main reason why computers matter to you and me and our future is because they have perfect memories. They never forget anything they’re told. James Burke, Connections s1e5: Wheel of Fortune
This is a mechanical version of an Arabic universe ... They thought the Earth where I am now was the centre of everything. ibid.
To them it was revolutionary clap-trap but to us this new view is obvious ... Why believe anything unless you can prove. Our modern approach to learning starts here ... There was only one thing to do. Invent the Inquisition. And we all know what that got up to. Very nasty stuff. ibid.
You began to see that there was something wrong with the old idea of the Earth being at the centre of everything. This frightening possibility took Europe by storm. ibid.
An American engineer, a guy called Frank Gilbreth ... He and his psychologist wife set about putting things right ... Time and Motion was their thing ... Had twelve kids and wrote a book about it called Cheaper by the Dozen. ibid.
Everybody’s energy comes from the same limited source: this planet. James Burke, Connections s1e6: Thunder in the Skies
It was either a lack of sun-spots or a lot of volcanic activity that caused the weather to change ... There appears to be a connection between sun spots and the weather. ibid.
It was the carburettor that gave the Daimler car company a head start over all the others. ibid.
The first freighter four hundred years ago built with those same characteristics [as a 747] changed the world. James Burke, Connections s1e7: The Long Chain
But the deal that made England great was this idea: kidnap Africans, sell them in Barbados for sugar, sell that in America for tobacco, and make yourself a million. ibid.
The biggest insurance organisation in the world – Lloyds of London. ibid.
Safer lighting: In 1792 a Scotsman called Murdoch said he’d invented it: you heat coal up, he said, and you set fire to the vapours the coal gives off and you get this ... Murdoch worked for James Watt. ibid.
Windsor recognised that if you’re going to do it, do it big ... Within six years the country’s major cities had gas-lit streets. ibid.
Have you noticed what’s happened to plastic in the last ten years? It’s become something in its own right … It’s not so long since the word plastic was an insult … It’s a plastic world. Connections s1e8: Eat, Drink & Be Merry
The credit card: This is you coded into that magnetic tape … The world’s newest virtue: credit worthiness. ibid.
Edison invented inventing here at the world’s first industrial laboratory. And he laid down precise rules for it: is there a market for the invention? Get financial backing before you start. Publicise the whole thing in advance so that when it comes up the consumers are ready to pay for it. And plough every penny you make back into making more inventions. James Burke, Connections s1e9: Countdown
Change is nothing new in man’s life. When he first appeared on the planet the world around him changed constantly. But it was the regular repeated change of the seasons. James Burke, Connections s1e10: Yesterday, Tomorrow & You
Every one of man’s inventions acts like a trigger to cause change. ibid.
This was the first great trigger of change: the plough. ibid.
You’ve been taught as I was for example that things happen in a straight forward line. ibid.