The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles... respect for human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the equality of all good citizens before the law... or, in a word justice.
The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.
Consider the bloody history of Europe: there was a great aspiration for high culture, yet this very same culture was shaped by brutality and barbarism.
I think... the history of civilization is an attempt to codify, classify and categorize aspects of human nature that hardly lend themselves to that process.
Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists.
In all the areas within which the spiritual life of humanity is at work, the historical epoch wherein fate has placed us is an epoch of stupendous happenings.
One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class.
Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.
From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.