# Quote — George R. Stewart, Earth Abides

> Man invented civilization, and was inordinately proud of it. But in no way did civilization change life more than by sharpening the line between work and play, and at last that division came to be more important than the old one between sleeping and waking. Sleep came to be thought a kind of relaxation, and “sleeping on the job” a heinous sin. The turning out of the light and the ringing of the alarm clock were not so much the symbols of man’s dual life as were the punching of the time clock and the blowing of the whistle. Men marched on picket lines and threw bricks and exploded dynamite to shift an hour from one classification to the other, and other men fought equally hard to prevent them. And always work became more laborious and odious, and play grew more artificial and febrile.

- 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: 193
- 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/man-invented-civilization

## 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)