Society

"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws."

"A person who cannot live in society, or does not need to because he is self-sufficient, is either a beast or a god."

"What is not good for the beehive, cannot be good for the bees."

"For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast."

"Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection."

"Man becomes conscious of himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society."

"I’ve inspected your profile. You are not stupid. Misguided, idealistic, naive, certainly, but not stupid. You must know how societies work. You must at least have an inkling. They work on force, power and coercion. People don’t behave themselves because they are nice. That’s the liberal fallacy. People behave themselves because if they don’t they will be punished. All this is known. It isn’t even debatable. Civilisation after civilisation, society after society, species after species, all show the same pattern. Society is control: control is reward and punishment. Reward is being allowed to partake of the fruits of that society and, as a general but not unbreakable rule, not being punished without cause."

"Building up societies with “dead souls” is no great achievement."

"The quest for other, and better, forms of life, society, technology, ethics, and law may not reveal that they are actually elsewhere; but it may in the long run help us to make some of them actual on earth."

"The history of society is the history of the inventive labors that man alter man, alter his desires, habits, outlook, relationships both to other men and to physical nature, with which man is in perpetual physical and technological metabolism."

"I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance."

"A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one— And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all."

"But now being lifted into high society, And having pick'd up several odds and ends without any danger of a riot, he Might for long lying make himself amends; And singing as he sung in his warm youth, Agree to a short armistice with truth."

"What times! What manners!"

"The only living socities are those which are animated by inequality and injustice."

"It is the retention by twentieth-century, men of the Neolithic point of view that says: You stay in your village and I will stay in mine. If your sheep eat our grass we will kill you, or we may kill you anyhow to get all the grass for our own sheep. Anyone who tries to make us change our ways is a witch and we will kill him. Keep out of our village."

"Those families, you know, are our upper crust, not upper ten thousand."

"In human society the warmth is mainly at the bottom."

"The rout is Folly's circle, which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoy'd into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise."

"It's not sex and drug advice these kids need, so much as help in acquiring a world view, in motivating them to take responsibility and enabling them to build proper relationships."

"Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon which it is supported."

"The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”"

"The dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished."

"The virtues of society are the vices of the saint."

"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members."

"Every man is like the company he is wont to keep."

"In the affluent society, no sharp distinction can be made between luxuries and necessaries."

"For every social wrong there must be a remedy. But the remedy can be nothing less than the abolition of the wrong ]Liyabona Kakaza], Social Problems, Chapter IX. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 724–25."

"The noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure."

"I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London."

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame … as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world … aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

"We have really lost in our society the sense of the sacredness of life."

"I will only suggest that greater biological knowledge may, before long, alter the whole structure of society. Those who think that the life of the future will be like that of the present, only more so, are likely, I think, to be wrong."

"I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."

"Le sage quelquefois évite le monde de peur d'être ennuyè."

"He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society."

"-- social life is fill’d With doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, When the imagination is dethroned, Is turned to weariness."

"Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life."

"Full quote: Truly, society is like a large piece of frozen water ; there are the rough places to be shunned, the very slippery ones all ready for a fall, and the holes which seem made expressly to drown you. All that can be done is to glide lightly over them. Skating well is the great art of social life."

"I see clearly that society is as much a science as astronomy; and, also, that, like poetry, one must be born with a genius for it."

"The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next."

"A system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife."

"We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world."

"A society made up of the individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic."

"When society requires to be rebuilt, there is no use in attempting to rebuild it on the old plan."

"This is the essence of a good society: that people are able to feel goodness in themselves and each other as much as possible; that even when things are difficult or life is painful, people have the support of others; that the ways we get things done are also the ways we carve out spaces to fully see and appreciate each other. And have fun."

"There are two ways of considering society. According to some, the development of human associations is not subject to providential, unchangeable laws. Rather, these associations, having originally been organized in a purely artificial manner by primeval legislators, can later be modified or remade by other legislators, in step with the progress of social science. In this system the government plays a preeminent role, because it is upon it, the custodian of the principle of authority, that the daily task of modifying and remaking society devolves. According to others, on the contrary, society is a purely natural fact. Like the earth on which it stands, society moves in accordance with general, preexisting laws. In this system, there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as social science; there is only economic science, which studies the natural organism of society and shows how this organism functions."

"Man experiences a multitude of needs, on whose satisfaction his happiness depends, and whose non-satisfaction entails suffering. Alone and isolated, he could only provide in an incomplete, insufficient manner for these incessant needs. The instinct of sociability brings him together with similar persons, and drives him into communication with them. Therefore, impelled by the self-interest of the individuals thus brought together, a certain division of labor is established, necessarily followed by exchanges. In brief, we see an organization emerge, by means of which man can more completely satisfy his needs than he could living in isolation. This natural organization is called society. The object of society is therefore the most complete satisfaction of man's needs. The division of labor and exchange are the means by which this is accomplished."

"Old Lady T-sh-nd [Townshend] formerly observed that the human race might be divided into three separate classes—men, women and H-v-eys [Herveys]."

"La Société est l'union des hommes, et non pas les hommes."

"This new rage for rhyming badly, Which late hath seized all ranks and classes, Down to that new estate 'the masses.'"

"What will Mrs. Grundy say?"

"The absence of hope can rot a society from within."

"Intense suffering may be a private, internal phenomenon, often hidden from the gaze or awareness of others, but it is the most viscerally overwhelming experience there is, pleading desperately for relief. There is nothing else that has greater urgency than preventing or relieving intense suffering – of human beings and, indeed, of any sentient beings capable of suffering. It is the single most important goal of a compassionate society."

"Our genetically enriched descendants may regard existence without "dukkha" - the abolition of suffering - as the ethical foundation of any civilised society."

"I dread to think of a society devoid of love, compassion and humanity."

"Heav'n forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all."

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

"The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them."

"Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient for his needs."

"There are two kinds of dependence: dependence on things, which is the work of nature; and dependence on men, which is the work of society."

"In human society man is the chief tool of man."

"Money is the source of all the false ideas of society."

"Society must be studied in the individual and the individual in society."

"Men are depraved and perverted by society."

"Society is so general and so mixed there is no place left for retirement, and even in the home we live in public."

"Society is not created by the crowd."

"Sociale animal est."

"Society is no comfort To one not sociable."

"Whilst I was big in clamour came there in a man, Who, having seen me in my worst estate, Shunn'd my abhorr'd society."

"To make society The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself Till supper-time alone."

"Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small."

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"As the French say, there are three sexes,—men, women, and clergymen."

"Ah, you flavour everything; you are the vanille of society."

"I don't want to waste my time; become another casualty of society. I'll never fall in line; become another victim of your conformity and back down."

"Society can imprison one's happiness"

"It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob."

"As long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it."

"They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations."

"Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate oddfellow society."

"Society therefore is as ancient as the world."

"In the past, women were supposed to be pretty and men successful. Nowadays, everyone has to be able to do everything, and the pressure to satisfy that goal, along with the insecurity it brings, has doubled. Expectations rise while birth rates fall. Women have become a more horrific version of men, readily expressing their displeasure over lack of sexual compliance. Men have become insecure and have fled to the Internet. Both are approaching a state of narcissistic lunacy, and solidarity is something that seems attainable only among friends."

"I suppose Society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy."

"Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself."

"At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city."

"Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life."

"There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead."

"Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children."

"Now, the vicissitudes that afflict the individual have their source in society. It is this situation that has given currency to the phrase "social forces". Personal relations have given way to impersonal ones. The Great Society has arrived and the task of our generation is to bring it under control. The study of how it is to be done is the function of politics."

"[Society] is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

"We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges."

"The truth is that a vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person. Without that restructuring the good will that holds society together will be slowly dissipated. It is that sense of futility which permeates the present series of protests and dissents. Where there is a persistent sense of futility, there is violence; and that is where we are today."

"The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow—by the tilt of the social landscape."

"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society."