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Society Quotes
"When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside."
42
"I stand for simple justice, equal opportunity and human rights. The indispensable elements in a democratic society - and well worth fighting for."
42
"Anarchists are socialists because they want the improvement of society, and they are communists because they are convinced that such a transformation of society can only result from the establishment of a commonwealth of property."
41
"Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being."
41
"The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong."
41
"Literature that keeps employing new linguistic and formal modes of expression to draft a panorama of society as a whole while at the same time exposing it, tearing the masks from its face - for me that would be deserving of an award."
41
"I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay."
41
"I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the servitude in the patriarchal families."
41
"The farther a society progresses, the more clearly the individual becomes the antithesis of the group."
41
"There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society."
41
"As society diversifies, the number of people who read literature is decreasing. It will be difficult for readers to digest my ideas through literature."
41
"A corporation is organized as a system - it has this department, that department, that department... they don't have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on."
41
"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society."
41
"Every pessimist who ever lived has been buried in an unmarked grave. Tomorrow has always been better than today, and it always will be."
41
"We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done."
41
"Just about every year, Congress passes another crime bill - spending billions of dollars to build more prisons, to place more band-aids on society's scars."
41
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."
41
"Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them... You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring."
41
"I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul."
41
"We're all social beings. We internalize ideas from our socialization."
41
"Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe."
41
"The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them inpractical fashion."
41
"You can't beat women anyhow and that if you are wise or dislike trouble and uproar you don't even try to."
41
"The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction."
41
"Suffering engenders passion; and while the prosperous blind themselves, or go to sleep, the hatred of the unfortunate classes kindles its torch at some sullen or ill-constituted mind, which is dreaming in a corner, and sets to work to examine society. The examination of hatred is a terrible thing.Suffering begets rage, and while the prosperous turn a blind eye, or nod off which is always the same thing as shutting your eyes, the hate of the unprosperous masses has hits torch lit by some malcontent or warped mind dreaming away in a corner, somewhere, and it begins to examine society. Examination by hate is a terrible thing."
41
"What ranks above all else for economic and political reconstruction is a radical change of ideologies. Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem."
41
"Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?"
41
"The nearest the modern general or admiral comes to a small-arms encounter of any sort is at a duck hunt in the company of corporation executives at the retreat of Continental Motors, Inc."
41
"As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays it is the only desert within our reach."
41
"The only social change presented by most SF has been towards authoritarianism, the domination of ignorant masses by a powerful elite-sometimes presented as a warning, but often quite complacently. Socialism is never considered as an alternative, and democracy is quite forgotten. Military virtues are taken as ethical ones. Wealth is assumed to be a righteous goal and a personal virtue. Competitive free-enterprise capitalism is the economic destiny of the entire Galaxy. In general, American SF has assumed a permanent hierarchy of superiors and inferiors, with rich, ambitious, aggressive males at the top, then a great gap, and then at the bottom the poor, the uneducated, the faceless masses, and all the women."
41
"Our society gives its economy priority over health, love, truth, beauty, sex and salvation; over life itself. Whatsoever is given precedence over life will take precedence over life, and will end in eliminating life. Since economics, at its most abstract level, is the religion of our people, no noneconomic happening, not even one as potentially spectacular as the Second Coming, can radically alter the souls of our people."
41
"But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association."
41
"Deep pockets and empty hearts rule the world. We unleash them at our peril."
41
"We often hear about stepping outside ourselves, but rarely about stepping outside our generation."
41
"The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world."
41
"Marx, as we have seen, solved it by declaring capital to be a different thing from product, and maintaining that it belonged to society and should be seized by society and employed for the benefit of all alike."
41
"Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead."
40
"The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism."
40
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