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Civilisation is not an appeal to nature. It is a revolt against nature—against nature as it has been represented in man in the past. It is supernatural. Civilization is an attempt to subordinate and control those primitive impulses which have reigned in human nature in the less gracious and less rational times gone by—impulses which we have ourselves to-day to a considerable extent inherited.

— J. Howard Moore Ethics and Education (1912)

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More quotes by J. Howard Moore

Each being is an integer in the stupendous scheme of consciousness.

Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899)

Imitation will not always be stronger than reason, but it is today.

Savage Survivals (1916)

Inconsideration by human beings toward the rest of sentients is an aspect of that vast unconsciousness which taught that blacks were made for whites, females for males, and barbarians" for Romans.

Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899)

Act toward others as you would act toward a part of your own self.

The Universal Kinship (1906)

Vacation days may be much more beautifully spent communing with the transcendent spirit of Nature than in the butchery and terrorisation of her simple-hearted children.

The New Ethics (1907)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: J. Howard Moore (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.