Mark Twain Civilization Quotations

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages

We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose -- some for cash and some for ''political influence.'' We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. ''Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?''

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities

The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized people.

Is it, perhaps, possible that there are two kinds of Civilization-one for home consumption and one for the heathen market?

There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.

Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.

The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart-and we consider this one of the signs of savagery.

My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.

If you will notice, there is seldom a telegram in a paper which fails to show up one or more members & beneficiaries of our Civilization as promenading with his shirt-tail up & the rest of his regalia in the wash.

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

Shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?

Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded.

It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level?.

Civilizations proceed from the heart rather than from the head.

Morals are not the important thing-nor enlightenment-nor civilization. A man can do absolutely well without them, but he can't do without something to eat. The supremest thing is the need of the body, not of the mind and spirit.

The true pioneer of civilization is not the newspaper, not religion, not the railroad - but whiskey!