Akihito
Akihito

The Japanese keenly learned from Western civilisation in a bid to modernize and preserve the nation.

Al Gore
Al Gore

Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

Alain Ducasse
Alain Ducasse

It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.

Alan Furst
Alan Furst

Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley

Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.

Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace

Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race.

Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey

From his roots as a slave, the American Negro - sometimes sorrowing, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful - has touched, illuminated, and influenced the most remote preserves of world civilisation. I and my dance theater celebrate this trembling beauty.

Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel

I can say that we are very clear in our mind about the responsibility of the national soldiers for the break with civilisation that was the Shoah. We are firmly convinced that this is something that will have to be handed over to generations to come... so we don't see any reason to change our view of history.

Anil Agarwal
Anil Agarwal

Environmental activism against the resource industry is widespread all over the world, but at the same time we have to realise that these are basic materials on which civilisation depends. We need to tap natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Annie Besant
Annie Besant

Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.