"The institutions, conventions, customs and laws that make up the complex structure of a society are the work of a hundred centuries and a billion minds; and one mind must not expect to comprehend them in one lifetime, much less in twenty years."

Society, Structure, Complexity, Observation

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"The institutions, conventions, customs and laws that make up the complex structure of a society are the work of a hundred centuries and a billion minds; and one mind must not expect to comprehend them in one lifetime, much less in twenty years."

Exlpore more Society quotes

"Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?"

Frank Herbert, American Writer

Society, Economy, Consent, Education, Awareness

"Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian Novelist

Society, Prison, Love, Compassion, Regulation

"Rootlessness," I opine, "is the twenty-first century norm.""You're not wrong and that's why we're in the shit we're in, mate. If you belong nowhere, why give a tinker's toss about anywhere?"

David Mitchell, British Novelist

Society, Identity, Belonging, Truth, Modernity

"Half of the world population is dying from poverty and hunger and still you think you are not rich enough."

M.F. Moonzajer, Afghan Author

Society, Poverty, Wealth, Perspective, Gratitude

"The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away."

Stephen Hawking, English Physicist

Society, Celebrity, Recognition, Privacy, Life

"A lot of attention has been given over to the Catholic Churches sexual abuse of children in their care, but this attention seems to have been hijacked by the media and has overshadowed the many thousands of victims that endured physical abuse."

Stephen Richards, British Author

Society, Church, Abuse, Victims, Media

"The meanest most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man and then qualifies it with a 'but'."

Henry Ward Beecher, American Clergyman

Society, Praise, Criticism, Irony, Judgment

"The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness."

Henry A. Kissinger, American Statesman

Society, Loneliness, Nixon

"I think I can speak for every Senator, saying that he or she ran for the Senate because we want to help make this a better place; that is, we want to help our States and help America."

Max Baucus, American Politician

Society, America, Help, Saying, Senate

"Though the earth contains greater energy and mass than any single being, linked together, "people make the world go-round"."

T. F. Hodge, American Motivational Speaker

Society, Energy, People, World, Connection

Explore more quotes by Will Durant

"Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle."

Government, Excess

"Grow strong, my comrade that you may standUnshaken when I fall; that I may knowThe shattered fragments of my song will comeAt last to finer melody in you;That I may tell my heart that you beginWhere passing I leave off, and fathom more."

Friendship, Support, Strength, Love

"Virtue is not news, and virtuous men, like happy nations, have no history."

Ethics, Virtue, History, Legacy, Morality

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."

People, Trouble, Wishes

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."

Education, Discovery, Ignorance

"But now and then liberty, in the slogans of the strong, means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak."

Society, Liberty, Freedom, Ethics, Power

"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say."

Nothing,

"We are living in the excesses of freedom. Just take a look at 42nd Street an Broadway."

Freedom, Living

"Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say."

Wisdom, Silence, Restraint, Speech

"We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived."

Behavior, Reaction, Observation, Passion, Awareness