top of page
.png){kind=small}
Society Quotes
"Libel actions, when we look at them in perspective, are an ornament of a civilized society. They have replaced, after all, at least in most cases, a resort to weapons in defense of a reputation."
88
"His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings."
87
"The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself."
86
"To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man."
85
"We're living in an age in which everything is allowed, and democracy is being devoured and destroyed by that limitless freedom."
78
"Women are still cats and birds. Or at the best, cows."
77
"Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, revelling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community."
73
"You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
70
"A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate."
70
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
68
"Culture change means we will do things differently."
68
"The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society."
68
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
67
"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."
67
"As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty " to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
67
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
66
"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."
66
"An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run."
65
"Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously and cannot even insult each one another."
64
"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."
62
"Patriotism, whether it is of the Western kind, or of the Eastern kind, is the same, a poison in human beings that is really distorting thought. So patriotism is a disease, and when you begin to realize, become aware that it is a disease, then you will see how your mind is reacting to that disease. When, in time of war, the whole world talks of patriotism, you will know the falseness of it, and therefore you will act as a true human being."
61
"I'm an underdog person, so I align myself with those who seem to be not considered valuable in polite society."
60
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
60
"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children."
60
"Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society."
59
"A knowledge of the forces that rule society, of the causes that have produced its upheavals, and of society's resources for promoting healthy progress has become of vital concern to our civilization."
58
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
58
"Our choice of a reform framework dictated that we looked at the fundamental assumptions that had driven Nigeria's economy, society and policy hitherto and to seek ways of either abandoning or transcending those assumptions and their supporting institutions."
57
"Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always."
57
"We have held the peculiar notion that a person or society that is a little different from us, whoever we are, is somehow strange or bizarre, to be distrusted or loathed. Think of the negative connotations of words like alien or outlandish. And yet the monuments and cultures of each of our civilizations merely represent different ways of being human. An extraterrestrial visitor, looking at the differences among human beings and their societies, would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities."
57
"Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."
56
"The most violent element in society is ignorance."
55
"It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme."
55
"Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members."
54
"The trouble is it's very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently."
54
"Why should we use the Dollar even when we trade among ourselves?"
54
"A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful."
54
"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained."
54
"A free economy is as essential to society as democratic political institutions. A strong market-based economy is the fertile ground for democratic freedoms that we think are important."
53
"Some women have become far too proscriptive of other women's pleasures and private arrangements, and the definition of feminism has become ideologically overloaded."
52
bottom of page