Quote

The more rapidly a civilization progresses, the sooner it dies for another to rise in its place.

Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.

Yet, history has shown that if material force can defeat some ideologies it can no longer obliterate a civilization without destabilizing the whole planet.

Civilization never stands still; if in one country it is falling back, in another it is changing, evolving, becoming more complicated, bringing fresh experience to body and mind, breeding new desires, and exploiting Nature's cupboard for their satisfaction.

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

History shows us that other highly developed forms of civilization have collapsed. Who knows whether the same fate does not await our own?

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.

Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.