Quotes About Society

majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power.

Bas?n özgürlüÄŸü"nün, ahlaksal olarak çökmüÅŸ ya da bask?c? bir yönetime kar?? bir güvence olarak savunulmas?n? gerektirecek günlerin geride kald???n? umuyoruz.

In the present age—which has been described as "destitute of faith, but terrified at skepticism"—in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them—the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society.

Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

is likely soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future.

Estou convencido de que as relações sociais dos dois sexos, que subordinam um sexo a outro em nome da lei, são más em si mesmas e constituem um dos principais obstáculos que se opuseram ao progresso da humanidade; estou convencido de que devem ser substituídas por uma igualdade perfeita.

Marriage is the only form of slavery permitted by law.

Quem pode calcular o que se perde com a multidão de inteligências, a coexistirem com caracteres tímidos, que não se aventuram a incorporar-se em nenhuma corrente arrojada, vigorosa e independente de opinião, com o temor de que ela os leve a alguma coisa que possa ser taxada de irreligiosa ou imoral?

where to place the limit—how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control—is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done.

The present system is not, as many Socialists believe, hurrying us into a state of general indigence and slavery from which only Socialism can save us

All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.

The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future.

For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable.

and to extinguish all books, all schools, all combinations of individuals for joint action upon society, which may be attempted for the purpose of keeping alive a spirit at variance with its own. Is it, we say, the proper condition of man, in all ages and nations, to be under the despotism of Public Opinion?

this benefit from the Montesquieu of our own times, M. de Tocqueville.

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained.

That's what's wrong with America today, I guess. Something like that. I know something's wrong with America. Maybe that's it.

All that is needed to set us definitely on the road to a Fascist society is war. It will of course be a modified form of Fascism at first.

average men and women don't really exist except as a statistical conceit.

The publicists of mass-production economics have successfully altered public taste to believe it doesn't make sense to repair something old when for the same price you can have something new.

child labor becomes a label of condemnation in spite of its ancient function as the quickest, most reliable way to human independence—

The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you.

Institutional goals, however sane and well-intentioned, are unable to harmonize deeply with the uniqueness of individual human goals.