50 Movie Quotes about Civilization (+ Sound Clips)

Updated: Apr 8, 2026

Memorable quotes about civilization, selected from famous or less known movies by Movie-Sounds.org's visitors, accompanied by short mp3 and wav audio samples.

1 But why Earth, Jor-El? They're primitives thousands of years behind us.

Quote from Superman (1978)

2 I feel like the protohuman, coming out of the forest primeval and seeing the moon for the first time and throwing rocks at it.

Quote from Poltergeist (1982)

3 In fact, civilization and syphilization have advanced together.

Anthony Hopkins as Abraham Van Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

4 I always think tea is so civilized, don't you? -I didn't realize this custom had reached the colonies.

Quote from Batman (1966)

5 An American would despise himself for living off his wife. -But you see, I'm English. And we have none of these prejudices in the old and more developed civilizations.

Robert Morse as Dennis Barlow; Anjanette Comer as Aimée Thanatogenos in The Loved One (1965)

6 Without law, commander, there is no civilisation.

Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai

7 That's just my point. Here, there is no civilisation. -Then we have the opportunity to introduce it.

Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson; William Holden as Commander Shears in The Bridge on the River Kwai

8 Where there was desert, now there's a town. Where there was robbery, there's trade. Where there was despair, now there's hope. Civilization. I'll do anything to protect it.

Tina Turner as Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

9 The history of every major galactic civilization passes through three distinct and recognizable phases: survival, inquiry and sophistication.

Peter Jones as The Hitchhiker’S Guide To The Galaxy Book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

10 A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within.

Quote from The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)