# Quote — George R. Stewart, Earth Abides

> In the times of civilization men had really felt themselves as the masters of creation. Everything has been good or bad in relation to man. So you killed rattlesnakes. But now nature had become so overwhelming that any attempt at its control was merely outside anyone’s circle of thought. You lived as part of it, not as its dominating power.

- Author: [George R. Stewart](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart.md)
- Book: [Earth Abides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides.md)
- Page: 289
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_R._Stewart#Earth_Abides_(1949)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/in-the-times

## More from this book

> What would be the use of all these books now? Why worry about one of them? Why worry about all the millions of them? There was no one left, now, to carry on. Books themselves, mere wood pulp and lampblack, were nothing—without a mind to use them.

p. 292 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/what-would-be-the.md)

> What a strange thing then is this great civilization, that no sooner have men attained it than they seek to flee from it!

p. 293 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/what-a-strange.md)

> How then, once overthrown, shall this great civilization, except by renewed Forces and Pressures, ever come again?

p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/how-then-once.md)