The Complete Civ5 Quotes List [WIP]

There are a lot of quotes in Civ5, and I haven't seen a list anywhere of them. Thus, I'd like to make this thread a list of each, categorized by type (wonder, tech, etc.).

INDEX

Technology
Wonder
Civlopedia
Era

 

TECHNOLOGY

Acoustics
"Their rising all at once was as the sound of a thunder heard remote."
--Milton

Advanced Ballistics
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?"
--Tom Hehrer

Agriculture
"Where tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization."
--Daniel Webster

Animal Husbandry
"Thou salt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."
--The Bible, Deuteronomy, 25:4

Archaeology
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
--George Santayana

Archery
"The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction."
--Aesop

Astronomy
"Joyfully to the breeze royal Odysseus spread his sail, and with his rudder skillfully he steered."
--Homer

Atomic Theory
"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes."
--Albert Einstein

Banking
"Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion."
--Jean Jacques Rousseau

Biology
"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
--Lyall Watson

Bronze Working
"Here Hector entered, with a spear eleven cubits long in his hand; the bronze point gleamed in front of him, and was fastened to the shaft of the spear by a ring of gold."
--Homer

Calendar
"So teach us to number our days, so that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
--The Bible, Psalms, 90:12

Chemistry
"Wherever we look, the work of the chemist has raised the level of our civilization and has increased the productive capacity of our nation."
--Calvin Coolidge

Chivalry
"Who pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England"
--Malory

Civil Service
"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency."
--Eugene McCarthy

Combustion
"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves."
--Albert Einstein

Compass
"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Computers
"Computer are like Old Testament gods: lots of rules and no mercy."
--Joseph Campbell

Construction
"Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Currency
"Better is bread with a happy heart/Than wealth with vexation."
--Amenemope

Dynamite
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
--Christopher Dawson

Economics
"Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe."
--Albert Einstein

Ecology
"Only within the moment of time represented by the present century as one species, man, acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."
--Rachel Carson

Education
"Education is the best provision for old age."
--Aristotle

Electricity
"Is it a fact - or have I dreamt it - that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?"
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Electronics
"There's a basic principle about consumer electronics: it gets more powerful all the time and it gets cheaper all the time."
--Trip Hawkins

Engineering
"Instrumental or mechanical sciencce is the noblest and, above all others, the most useful."
--Leonardo da Vinci

Fertilizer
"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself."
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Flight
"Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle."
--Igor Sikorsky

Future Tech
"I think we all agree, the past is over."
--George W. Bush

Globalization
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
--Marshall McLuhan

Gunpowder
"The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops."
--Alfred Nobel

Horseback Riding
"My kingdom for a horse!"
--Shakespeare (Richard III)

Iron Working
"Do not wait to strike 'til the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."
--William Butler Yeats

Lasers
"The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light."
--The Holy Bible: Romans, 13:12

Machinery
"The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being."
--Thomas Jefferson

Masonry
"How happy are those whose walls already rise!"
--Virgil

Mass Media
"The speed of communication is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue."
--Edward R. Murrow

Mathematics
"Mathematics is the gate and key to the sciences."
--Roger Bacon

Metal Casting
"When pieces of bronze or gold or iron break, the metal-smith welds them together again in the fire, and the bond is established."
--Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Metallurgy
"There never was a good knife made of bad steel."
--Benjamin Franklin

Military Science
"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."
--George S. Patton

Mining
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty

Nanotechnology
"The impact of nanotechnology is expected to exceed the impact the electronics revolution has had on our lives."
--Richard Schwartz

Navigation
"The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators."
--Edward Gibbon

Nuclear Fission
"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
--J. Robert Oppenheimer

Nuclear Fusion
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
--Albert Einstein

Optics
"He made an instrument to know/If the moon shine at full or no."
--Samuel Butler

Particle Physics
"Every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances."
--Isaac Newton

Penicillin
"In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men."
--Cicero

Philosophy
"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."
--Socrates

Physics
"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."
--Galileo

Plastics
"Ben, I want to say one word to you, just one word: plastics."
--Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, The Graduate

Pottery
"Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?"
--The Bible, Isaiah, 45:9

Printing Press
"It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell."
--The Chicago Times

Radar
"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible."
--Jonathan Swift

Radio
"The whole country was tied together by radio. We all experienced the same heroes and comedians and singers. They were giants."
--Woody Allen

Railroad
"The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man."
--Thomas Jefferson

Refrigeration
"And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food."
--William Wordsworth

Replaceable Parts
"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."
--Henry Ford

Rifling
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
--Robert E. Lee

Robotics
"1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."
--Isaac Asimov

Rocketry
"A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode."
--Astronautics Magazine, 1937

Sailing
"He who commands the sea has command of everything."
--Themistocles

Satellites
"Now, somehow, in some new way, the sky seemed almost alien."
--Lyndon B. Johnson

Scientific Theory
"Every great advance in science has issues from a new audacity of imagination."
--John Dewey

Stealth
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."
--Sun Tzu

Steam Power
"The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communications all the world will become as one family."
--Townsend Harris

Steel
"John Henry said to his Captain: 'A man ain't nothin' but a man,/And before I'll let your steam drill beat me down,/I'll die with the hammer in my hand."
--Anonymous: The Ballad of John Henry, the Steel-Drivin' Man

Telegraph
"I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately."
--Mark Twain

Theology
"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do."
--St. Thomas Aquinas

Trapping
"Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall for the same traps or nets twice."
--Saint Jerome

The Wheel
"Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart."
--Japanese Proverb

Writing
"He who destroys a good book kills reason itself."
--John Milton

 

Wonders

Angkor Wat
"The temple is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."
--Antonio da Magdalena

Big Ben
"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time."
--Leonard Bernstein

Brandenburg Gate
"Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings."
--Horace

Chichen Itza
"The katun is established at Chicen Itza. The settlement of the Itza shall take place there. The quetzal shall come, the green bird shall come. Ah Kantenal shall come. It is the word of God. The Itza shall come."
--The Books of Chilam Balam

The Colossus
"Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves."
--William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar

Cristo Redentor
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."
--The Bible, Matthrew 25:28

Eiffel Tower
"We only live to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting."
--Kahlil Gibran

The Forbidden Palace
"Most of us can, ad we choose, make of the world either a palace or a prison."
--John Lubbock

The Great Library
"Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and all that without delusion or imposture are preserved and restored."
--Sir Francis Bacon

The Great Lighthouse
"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep."
--The Bible, Psalms 107:23-24

The Great Wall
"The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's...not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable."
--Sun Tzu

The Hagia Sophia
"For it soars to a height to match the sky, and as if surging up from amongst the other buildings it stands on high and looks down upon the remainder of the city, adorning it, because it is a part of it, but glorying in its own beauty."
--Procopius, De Aedificus

The Hanging Gardens
"I think that if ever a mortal heard the word of God it would be in a garden at the cool of day."
--F. Frankfort Moore

Himeji Castle
"Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is not other reasoning."
--Yamamoto Tsunetomo

The Kremlin
"The Law is a fortress on a hill that armies cannot take or floods wash away."
--The Prophet Muhammed

The Louvre
"Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Machu Picchu
"Few romances can ever surpass that of the granite citadel on top of the beetling precipices of Machu Picchu, the crown of Inca Land."
--Hiram Bingham

Notre Dame
"Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book."
--Victor Hugo

The Oracle
"The ancient Oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing."
--Socrates

Pentagon
"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Porcelain Tower
"Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons."
--James Russell Lowell

The Pyramids
"O, let not the pains of death which come upon thee enter into my body. I am the god Tem, and I am in the foremost part of the sky, and the power which protecteth me is that which is with all the gods forever."
--The Book of the Dead, translated by Sit Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge

Sistine Chapel
"I live and love in God's peculiar light."
--Michaelangelo Buonarroti

Statue of Liberty
"Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
--Emma Lazarus

Stonehenge
"Time crumbles things; everything grows old and is forgotten under the power of time."
--Aristotle

Sydney Opera House
"Those who lose dreaming are lost."
--Australian Aboriginal saying

Taj Mahal
"The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time."
--Rabindranth Tagore

United Nations
"More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that is why we have the United Nations."
--Kofi Annan

 

Civlopedia

Home Page
"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country ever is, at home."
--Oliver Goldsmith

Game Concepts
"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."
--Albert Camus

Technologies
"The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous."
--Carl Sagan

Units
"The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."
--George Washington

Promotions
"Every French soldier carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

Buildings
"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines."
--Frank Lloyd Wright

Wonders
"Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man."
--Sophocles

Policies
"Honesty is the best policy."
--Miguel de Cervantes

Specialists and Great People
"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
--William Shakespeare

Civilizations and Leaders
"The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

City-States
"The city is the teacher of the man."
--Simonides

Terrain
"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here!"
--John Parker

Resources
"Seek not the lie of the immortals, but enjoy to the full the resources that are within reach."
--Pindar

improvements
"If I can in any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain."
--Joseph Addison

 

Era

[Note that these are voice-over only, and not transcribed anywhere in-game. Attributions are entirely my own; please notify me of any errors.]

Classical
"Proud is the spirit of Zeus-fostered kings -- their honor comes from Zeus, and Zeus, god of council, loves them."
--Pindar

"He who knows others is wise; He who know himself is enlightened."
--Lao Tzu

"The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long."
--Herodotus

Medieval
"An emperor is subject to no one but God and justice."
--Fredrick I, Barbarossa

"This life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before of what is to follow we are utterly ignorant."
--Saint Bede

"The voice of the people is the voice of God."
--Attributed to William of Malmesbury

Renaissance
"Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."
--Niccolo Machiavelli

"In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
--Erasmus

"Do you not know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?"
--Pope Julius III

Industrial
"We admit of no government by divine right...the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed."
--William Henry Harrison

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
--Mark Twain

"The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of empires has come."
--Joseph Chamberlain

Modern
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
--Josef Stalin

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
--Ronald Reagan

Future
"For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."
--African proverb

"The future is not what it used to be."
--Yogi Berra

"I never think about the future - it comes soon enough."
--Albert Einstein

 

Thanks ShaqFu!!!

I am looking forward to this.

 

One of my favorites is when you construct Big Ben (Wonder):

"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."
--Leonard Bernstein

When reaching the future era, I also remember hearing George W. Bush's
" think we can all agree, the past is over."

 

Do you need help Shaqfu seem like you are not updating so much

 

If anyone has the quotes for the era changes, it'd be hugely appreciated. I know Ancient doesn't have one (since you start there) and Classical is just "welcome to the Classical Era," but Rennaisance/Industrial/Future may.

I'm a full-time graduate student and work a part-time job. I can't dedicate all my time to CFC, sadly, and peruse Civlopedia all day.

 

You're sort of wrong. There are 4 different quotes for changing into each era. So one day when you enter the future era you will hear quote number 4 (simple "Welcome to the future"), but in another game you may hear George Bush's "We can all agree, the past is over".

Edit: the sound files for all these quotes are available in the directory of the game, of course it won't tell you who said it unless you see the text or type it into google or know it by heart.

 

Thanks! I found the files (4 per era, although one is a "welcome to the <era> era") and added them accordingly.

Moderators: The list is complete. If you could please change the title and remove the [WIP] I'd be in your eternal debt.

 

Thanks Shaqfu!!!

 

Caught a missing period; hence, an edit.

 

You can email me..I use to be a student so I know how you feel..

 

The tech announcement audio from CIV 5 bothers me a lot. It's weak and soft, feels as though someone's standing behind me and whispering into my year. My hair raises a little and a sense of creepiness fills me whenever I hear them, it also doesn't help that I usually play the game alone around midnight with lights tuned down.

 

Thanks for the nice post. I wonder why for the era quotes, they don't just *include* the written quotes as well? It wouldn't take too much effort to implement.

Imo the tech announcement quotes should be considered the same type of audio as the wonder quotes--I think wonder quotes go under a separate category for some reason.

 

By the way, is there any list of quotes which appear at the end of the game. For example, Ceasar says "I found Rome a city of bricks...". What do the others say?

 

thanks, this is great. the only thing i can suggest is fixing the typos (matthrew and a few others)

 

Civ4 quotes are so much better ...
Otherwise

 

Oh yeah, and where's the Publishing quote?