top of page
.png){kind=small}
Society Quotes
"We... have created a greater material wealth than any other society in the history of the human race. Yet we have managed to kill off millions of our population in an arrangement which we call "war."
52
"As society advances the standard of poverty rises."
51
"In polite society one laughs at all the jokes, including the ones one has heard before."
51
"To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting."
51
"Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison."
51
"Poor people! They build tunnels to reach the light."
51
"Like all social theories, internationalism must seek its basis in the economic and technical fields; here are to be found the most profound and the most decisive factors in the development of society."
50
"Persian social manners are well known, and there is no other society that can compete with them."
50
"There is no escape-we pay for the violence of our ancestors."
50
"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all."
50
"What's done to children, they will do to society."
49
"Society mends its wounds. And that's invariably true in all the tragedies, in the comedies as well. And certainly in the histories."
49
"Run away from greatness and greatness will follow you."
49
"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means."
49
"Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver."
49
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
49
"We are too undemanding, too ready to watch whatever is on the screen, too lonely, lazy, or bored to create our own lives. We turn on the TV and leave it on, allowing someone else to guide us."
49
"The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity."
49
"The kind of society which we still have is maybe, in some cases, getting worse. Competition is becoming a virtue. Intense competition drives people to go more and more into self-interest. Even to see other folks as competition."
49
"World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion."
48
"Melancholy in a capitalist, like the appearance of a comet, presages some misfortune to the world."
48
"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
48
"These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived."
48
"Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud."
48
"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career."
48
"Starbucks goes to a great effort, and pays twice as much for its coffee as its competitors do, and is very careful to help coffee producers in developing countries grow coffee without pesticides and in ways that preserve forest structure."
47
"An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences."
47
"The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it-and so were most of the mediocre people we grew up with, went to private schools with, sailed and played tennis with. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we can even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently."
47
"We must create a kind of globalization that works for everyone... and not just for a few."
47
"Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom."
47
"Today, the world rewards those with creative and intellectual muscles. So, women and skinny men need to shut up and start thinking."
47
"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."
46
"Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases."
46
"Where we can compete on merit, we do very well."
46
"The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer."
46
"A remarkable feature of the humanitarian movement, on both its sentimental and utilitarian sides, has been its preoccupation with the lot of the masses."
46
"The market system is the basis of our civilization. Its only alternative is the FA1?4hrer principle."
46
"I can't say that I've changed anybody's life, ever, and that's the real work of the world, if you want a better society."
46
bottom of page