A Quote by John Muir

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

John Muir

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Nature Poetry Civilization Destroyed Destroyed Nature Generally Gross Spiritual

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John Muir
American - Environmentalist
April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914

I don't agree with you in saying that in all human minds there is poetry. Man as he came from the hand of his Maker was poetic in both mind and body, but the gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

John Muir

Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

William Blake

... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.

Catharine Beecher

Again, if the world is destroyed, it must needs either be destroyed according to nature or against nature. Against nature is impossible, for that which is against nature is not stronger than nature. If according to nature, there must be another nature which changes the nature of the world: which does not appear.

Sallust

War is a damnable, filthy thing and has destroyed civilization after civilization

Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Emil Cioran

Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.

William Shenstone

Civilization is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.

Henri Frederic Amiel

The spiritual sense of our place in nature... can be traced to the origins of human civilization... The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity.

Al Gore

You can judge a civilization by its level of agreement with the green world. When people respect nature, it's a sign of a healthy situation. When they denigrate nature, it's a sign of an unhealthy civilization that will soon perish.

Frederick Lenz

What I do is very spiritual to me. I can't really connect with things unless they are spiritual in nature, so I have to make acting spiritual for myself, and each role a spiritual journey for me.

Lynn Collins

In nature forms are endlessly being destroyed and then recreated and destroyed and recreated. Nature isn't afraid to destroy forms in the process of regenerating. So why are we afraid of that in life?

Nicole Krauss

The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature.

Peter Singer

A lot of ancient poetry sees in nature a reflection of human emotions, and in a post-industrialized era, once people have become more aware of the necessity of a more harmonious relation between man and nature, we need to build cities which can connect with human spiritual needs instead of being merely functional.

Ma Yansong

My work is based upon contemporary Greek poetry - poetry which is concerned with the problems of today's civilization and, of course, with simple personal feelings of love, nostalgia, etc.

Mikis Theodorakis

A Quote by John Muir

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