Art is the signature of civilization.

Sills’s aphorism treats art as a civilization’s identifying mark—its “signature”—suggesting that what endures of a society is not only its power or wealth but the creative record it leaves behind. The line implies that art functions as evidence of shared values, imagination, and refinement, and that cultural achievement is a primary measure of collective maturity. Coming from an opera star and later a major arts administrator, the sentiment also reads as a defense of public support for the arts: to neglect art is, in effect, to erase the most legible trace of a people’s humanity and historical presence.