Mark Twain on Civilization from "Papers of the Adam Family" Our civilization is wonderful, in certain spectacular ways; wonderful in the material inflation which it calls progress; wonderful in its hunger for money, and in its indifference as to how it is acquired; in closing the public service against brains and character; in electing purchasable legislatures, blatherskite Congresses, and city governments which rob the town and sell municipal protection to gamblers, thieves and prostitutes for cash. It is a civilization which has destroyed the simplicity and repose of life; replaced its contentment, its poetry, its soft romance-dreams and visions with the money-fever, sordid ideals, vulgar ambitions, and the sleep which does not refresh. It has invented a thousand useless luxuries, and turned them into necessities; it has created a thousand vicious appetites and satisfies none of them; it has dethroned God and set up a shekel in His place. (edited by David Van Alstyne) Home / Of General Interest