User:Alumnum/Civilization IV

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The 2005 computer video game Civilization IV includes a number of quotes mentioning each technology achieved in the game.

Quotes[edit]

Ancient Era[edit]

Agriculture

  • Oh farmers, pray that your summers be wet and your winters clear. ~ Virgil, Georgics (29 BC), Book I, lines 100-101.
    • Umida solstitia atque hiemes orate serenas,
      agricolae.
      • More common translation: A wet summer and a fine winter should be the farmer's prayer.

Animal Husbandry

  • Blessed be the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. ~ Bible, Deuteronomy 28:4

Bronze Working

  • It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair. ~ Homer, The Iliad.

Masonry

  • It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls. ~ Aristophanes, Birds (414 BC)

Monotheism

  • I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. ~ Bible, Exodus 20:2

Pottery

  • Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? ~ Bible, Romans 9:21

Priesthood

  • The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. ~ Bible, Numbers 6:24-26

The Wheel

  • Put your shoulder to the wheel. ~ Aesop, Hercules and the Wagoner.

Classical Era[edit]

Aesthetics

  • Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for. ~ George Sand, letter to Alexandre Saint-Jean, (19 April 1872), published in Calmann Lévy (ed.) Correspondance (1812-1876). Eng. Transl by Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort in Letters of George Sand Vol. III, p. 242
    • More common translation: Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek.

Calendar

  • For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. ~ Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; King James Version.

Code of Laws

  • To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong should not harm the weak. ~ Hammurabi's Code; Prologue

Construction

  • And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias (1818)

Currency

  • Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. ~ Publius Syrus, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave, Maxim 847

Drama

  • All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. ~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It (1599–1600), Jaques, Act II, scene vii.

Iron Working

  • You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot. ~ Publius Syrus, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave, Maxim 262

Literature

  • Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested. ~ Sir Francis Bacon, Essays (1625), Of Studies.

Mathematics

  • If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics. ~ Roger Bacon, Bk. 1, ch. 4. Translated by Robert B. Burke, in: Edward Grant (1974) Source Book in Medieval Science. Harvard University Press. p. 93

Metal Casting

  • And them that take the sword shall perish by the sword. ~ Bible, Matthew 26:52

Medieval Era[edit]

Banking

Guilds

  • People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public. ~ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 152.

Machinery

  • A god from the machine. ~ Menander
    • Full original quote: ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεὸς [ἡμῖν] ἐπεφάνηϛ
    • Translation: You are by your epiphany a veritable "god from the machine."
      • The Woman Possessed with a Divinity, fragment 227, as translated in ‪Menander: The Principal Fragments‬‎ (1921) by Francis Greenleaf Allinson; this is one of the earliest occurrences of the phrase which became famous in its Latin form as "Deus ex machina."

Music

Optics

  • One doesn't discover new lands without losing sight of the shore. ~ Andre Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs [The Counterfeiters] (1925).

Paper

  • I cannot live without books. ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (10 June 1815).

Philosophy

  • I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. ~ Aristotle, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, p. 187.

Reinassance Era[edit]

Constitution

  • No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers. ~ Magna Carta

Corporation

Democracy

Education

  • There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance. ~ Ali ibn Abi-Talib, Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 198
    • More common translation: There is no capital more useful than intellect and wisdom, and there is no indigence more injurious than ignorance and unawareness.

Gunpowder

  • You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. ~ Al Capone, as quoted in Forbes (6 October 1986).

Liberalism

  • Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. ~ Benjamin Franklin
    • Derivative form of "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". This was first written by Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in its Reply to the Governor (11 Nov. 1755).

Military Science

  • I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. ~ John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780).

Military Tradition

  • Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. ~ Sun-Tzu, The Art of War (5th century BC), Chapter IV: Disposition of the Army.

Rifling

  • Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. ~ Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book), Chapter 5, originally published in Problems of War and Strategy (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224.

Industrial Era[edit]

Assembly Line

  • People can have the Model T in any color - so long as it's black. ~ Henry Ford
    • Derivative of "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" from My Life and Work (1922), p. 72. Chapter IV. Remark about the Model T in 1909; this has often been paraphrased, e.g.: "You can have any color as long as it's black."

Combustion

  • Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car. ~ E.B. White, One Man's Meat (1942), "Fro-Joy" (January 1940)

Fission

  • If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting The Bhagavad Gita

Industrialism

  • There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wage possible. ~ Henry Ford
    • Summarization of a larger quote. In Justus George Frederick (1930), A Philosophy of Production: A Symposium, p. 32; as cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 196

Medicine

  • As to diseases make a habit of two things ~ to help, or at least, to do no harm. ~ Hippocrates, Epidemics, Book I, Ch. 2.

Physics

Railroad

  • I fooled you, I fooled you, I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got all pig iron. ~ Lonnie Donegan, Rock Island Line

Scientific Method

Steam Power

  • You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bon-fire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense. ~ Napoleon, on Robert Fulton's Steamship

Modern/Future Era[edit]

Advanced Flight

  • Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth ~ Put out my hand and touched the Face of God. ~ John Gillespie Magee, Junior, High Flight, 1941.

Fusion

  • Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ~ Arthur C. Clarke. Third Clarke law, Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973).

Future Technology

Plastics

Radio

  • Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station. You know her life was saved by Rock 'n' Roll. ~ The Velvet Underground, Rock And Roll

Refrigeration

Robotics

  • The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do. ~ B.F. Skinner, Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (1969).

Stealth

  • Behind a veil, unseen yet present, I was the forceful soul that moved this mighty body. ~ Jean Racine, Agrippine, Britannicus, (1669), act I, scene I.

Superconductors

Dubious[edit]

Archery

  • Do not throw the arrow which will return against you. ~ Kurdish Proverb

Horseback Riding

  • If you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup. ~ Turkish Proverb

Hunting

  • If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both. ~ Native American saying

Meditation

  • Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back. ~ Buddha

Mining

  • The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. ~ Confucius

Writing

  • True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read. ~ Pliny the Elder

Alphabet

  • Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. ~ Buddha

Mysticism

  • Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God. ~ Cicero

Polytheism

  • Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth. ~ Homer

Sailing

  • You can't direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails. ~ Unknown

Compass

  • The wisest men follow their own direction. ~ Euripides

Monarchy

  • A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king. ~ Herodotus

Civil Service

  • The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. ~ Unknown

Divine Right

  • I am the state. ~ Louis XIV. Address to the Parliament of Paris; Attr. by weatard-Antoine G, Histoire de Paris (1834), vol.6, p. 298; probably apocryphal.

Engineering

  • A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Feudalism

  • I will to my lord be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns. ~ Anglo Saxon oath of Fealty

Theology

  • Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self; the heavenly by the love of God. ~ St. Augustine

Astronomy

  • Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. ~ Plato

Chemistry

  • Chemistry means the difference between poverty and starvation and the abundant life. ~ Robert Brent

Economics

Printing Press

  • What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind. ~ Wendell Phillips

Nationalism

  • A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Replaceable Parts and Composites

  • The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ~ Aristotle

Artillery

Communism

  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~ Dom Helder Camara

Electricity

  • We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles. ~ Thomas Edison

Steel

Computers

  • Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window. ~ Steve Wozniak

Ecology

  • We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~ Native American Song

Fiber Optics

  • There is a single light of science and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere. ~ Isaac Asimov

Genetics

  • Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. ~ Bob Edwards

Laser

  • Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. ~ Douglas Adams

Mass Media

  • The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. ~ Oscar Wilde

Rocketry

Misattributed[edit]

Fishing

Fascism

  • "The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." ~ Adolf Hitler

Biology

  • It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change. ~ Charles Darwin
    • The earliest known appearance of this basic statement is a paraphrase of Darwin in the writings of Leon C. Megginson, a management sociologist at Louisiana State University. [Megginson, Leon C. (1963). "Lessons from Europe for American Business". Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 44(1): 3-13.] Megginson's paraphrase (with slight variations) was later turned into a quotation. See the summary of Nicholas Matzke's findings in "One thing Darwin didn't say: the source for a misquotation" at the Darwin Correspondence Project. The statement is incorrectly attributed, without any source, to Clarence Darrow in Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session, September 25, 1987 (1988).

Flight

  • For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci
    • This quotation was first used in print (and misattributed to Leonardo da Vinci) in a science fiction story published in 1975, The Storms of Windhaven. One of the authors, Lisa Tuttle, remembers that the quote was suggested by science fiction writer Ben Bova, who says he believes he got the quote from a TV documentary narrated by Fredric March, presumably I, Leonardo da Vinci, written by John H. Secondari for the series Saga of Western Man, which aired on 23 February 1965. Bova incorrectly assumed that he was quoting da Vinci. The probable author is John Hermes Secondari (1919-1975), American author and television producer.
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