Civilization is hideously fragile, you know that; there’s not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just about a coat of varnish, wouldn’t you say?
C. P. Snow (1905-1980) English novelist, physical chemist, bureaucrat [Charles Percy Snow]
A Coat of Varnish, ch. 4 [Luria] (1979)
(Source)
Quotations about:
savagery
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
We must realize that man’s nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilization is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
“At the Root,” The United Amateur (Jul 1918)
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
John Buchan (1875-1940) Scottish novelist, poet, and politician; Governor-General of Canada (1935 -1940)
The Power-House, ch. 3 (1916)
(Source)
After our ages-long journey from savagery to civility, let’s hope we haven’t bought a round-trip ticket.
Cullen Hightower (1923-2008) American writer, aphorist, salesman.
(Attributed)
Attributed in Forbes magazine (29 Mar 1993).
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Letter to E. L. Godkin (24 Dec 1895)
(Source)
There is a raging tiger inside every man whom God put on this earth. Every man worthy of the respect of his children spends his life building inside himself a cage to pen that tiger in.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
America Comes of Middle Age: Columns, 1950-1962 (1963)
(Source)
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity ….
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Fate,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 1 (1860)
(Source)
Nature, as we know her, is no saint.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Experience,” Essays: Second Series (1844)
(Source)
We’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955) American novelist, essayist, poet
Animal Dreams (1990)
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) American author
“The Tower of the Elephant” (1933)
There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator (1897)
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, vol. 2 “Reason in Society,” ch. 3 “Industry, Government, and War” (1905-06)
