Art is the signature of civilizations. Beverly Sills
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person. William Feather
Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. Arnold J. Toynbee
Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now. Arnold J. Toynbee
On this showing, the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole. Arnold J. Toynbee
By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed. Lewis Mumford