“The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization.”

Ariel Durant

Ariel Durant - “The influence of geographic factors...” 1

Similar quotes

“Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.”

Aldo Leopold
Read more

“Boaz is not diminished, marginalized, or feminized in the slightest by being outnumbered and influenced by Ruth and Naomi. As a matter of fact, he only grows stronger himself through his collaborations with them.”

Carolyn Custis James
Read more

“The really essential factors of success in any undertaking are money and opportunity, and as a rule, the man who can make the first can make the second.”

Dorothy L. Sayers
Read more

“As people grow older, some of the ways they have contributed in the past may no longer be possible, but the challenge to society is not only to provide help and care where these are needed but also to offer the opportunity to contribute and care for others [p. 8]”

MARY CATHERINE BATESON
Read more

“Industry, technology, and commerce can thrive only as long as an idealistic national community offers the necessary preconditions. And these do not lie in material egoism, but in a spirit of sacrifice and joyful renunciation.”

Adolf Hitler
Read more