A Quote by Roger Ebert

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

Roger Ebert

Quote Topics

Believe Civilization Empathy Essential I Believe Most Quality

Quote Author

Roger Ebert
American - Critic
June 18, 1942 - April 4, 2013

Art is humanity's most essential, most universal language. It is not a frill, but a necessary part of communication. The quality of civilization can be measured through its music, dance, drama, architecture, visual art and literature. We must give our children knowledge and understanding of civilization's most profound works.

Ernest L. Boyer

Speed is one of the great curses of modern civilization, obsession with speed leads to quantitative approach; we come to believe that more is better. This is very materialistic, we have to realize that it is the quality of life, quality of relationships, quality of food, medicine, education and everything else which matters.

Satish Kumar

I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy.

Elizabeth Berg

The greatest quality that a person can possess is the quality of self-belief. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you won't, you most certainly won't.

Narendra Modi

Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.

Gary Bauer

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

Arundhati Roy

More and more, as civilization develops, we find the primitive to be essential to us. We root into the primitive as a tree roots into the earth. If we cut off the roots, we lose the sap without which we can't progress or even survive. I don't believe our civilization can continue very long out of contact with the primitive.

Charles Lindbergh

The most essential quality in the game is passion

Philipp Lahm

There is a dichotomy between people who feel economic principles should order human civilization and people who believe humanitarian principles should order human civilization. That essential disagreement is underlying practically all our world drama.

Marianne Williamson

Most Americans believe in fairness; we believe that people should work hard but there should be a safety net. We believe in saving the quality of our air and water for our children. Most Americans want action on climate change. You can just go through the list. Most Americans believe in progressive taxation.

Nancy MacLean

Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.

Paulo Coelho

We have progressed in a technological sense, but I'm not so sure whether we have progressed in a civilizational matter - the quality of the civilization has not improved. It's a civilization that's in love with technology but forgetting about the human side of it and the destructive tendency in human civilization has not been faced.

Laszlo Nemes

I believe with all my heart that civilization has produced nothing finer than a man or woman who thinks and practices true tolerance. Some one has said that most of us don't think, we just occasionally rearrange our prejudices. And I suspect that even today, with all the progress we have made in liberal thought, the quality of true tolerance is as rare as the quality of mercy. That men of all creeds have fundamental common objectives is a fact one must learn by the process of education. How to work jointly toward these objectives must be learned by experience.

Frank Knox

I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can.