A Quote by John Buchan

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

John Buchan

Quote Topics

Civilization Comfortable Compact Conspiracy Folk Keep Life Life Is Modern Modern Life Silent Up

Quote Author

John Buchan
Scottish - Novelist
August 26, 1875 - February 11, 1940

Folk songs are evasive-the truth about life, and life is more or less a lie, but then again that's exactly the way we want it to be. We wouldn't be comfortable with it any other way. A folk song has over a thousand faces and you must meet them all if you want to play this stuff. A folk song might vary in meaning and it might not appear the same from one moment to the next. It depends on who's playing and who's listening.

Bob Dylan

In society at large, nerds are law-abiding, caring, fundamentally good folk who keep the wheels of civilization grinding.

Alexandra Petri

Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends.

Jacques Ellul

You got to do what's happening today in the world. You got to keep up with time. Keep up to date, keep modern - keep up on your toes!

Jack LaLanne

After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life folk sit about the fire and stay warm, for the chill of death is upon them, and even the thickest bearskin can't keep off the shivering.

Jane Smiley

If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.

Don DeLillo

What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted

Lin Yutang

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

Michael Tippett

I always keep a damp beauty blender and a powder compact in my purse, and I touch up a lot.

Jeffree Star

But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt, and this is where I fault Stephen Ambrose and a lot of these guys who attack me - not all of life is a result of conspiracy by any means! Accident occurs alongside conspiracy.

Oliver Stone

I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on electric instruments and dabbled in different things.

Roger McGuinn

Everything is a conspiracy. People kind of demonize the word. But a conspiracy is when two people get together and do something. So, if more than one person does something, it's a conspiracy. The revolution was a conspiracy, Iran Contra, Watergate.

Richard Belzer

Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.

Ayn Rand

We need to evolve and articulate a global ethics for a global civilization that integrates and evolves the passionate truths of every great system of knowledge - pre-modern, modern, and post-modern.

Marc Gafni

Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?