His themes were not pride and love at all, though he used the words perpetually; as he used them they meant self-praise and hate. He talked a great deal about Truth also, for he was, he said, “cutting down beneath the veneer of civilization.” It is a durable, ubiquitous, specious metaphor, that one about veneer (or paint, or pliofilm, or whatever) hiding the nobler reality beneath. It can conceal a dozen fallacies at once. One of the most dangerous is the implication that civilization, being artificial, is unnatural: that it is the opposite of primitiveness… Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of those two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both. . Anonymous
About This Quote

It is a durable, ubiquitous, specious metaphor, that one about veneer (or paint, or pliofilm, or whatever) hiding the nobler reality beneath. It can conceal a dozen fallacies at once. One of the most dangerous is the implication that civilization, being artificial, is unnatural: that it is the opposite of primitiveness… Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

Of those two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both.

Source: The Left Hand Of Darkness

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Abuse manipulates and twists a child’s natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can’t afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she’s being abused–pain, outrage, hate,... - Unknown
  2. She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love. He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>But he couldn’t give love. He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>She had desperately wanted his... - G.G. Renee Hill
  3. There's a huge swath of humanity that has developed verbal abilities to extract resources from guilt-ridden people. They used to be priests, and now they're leftists. - Stefan Molyneux
  4. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous. - Frank Herbert
  5. We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language. - Arne Tiselius
Related Topics