Quotes About Society

What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.

When I read that nobody should ever feel ashamed to be alone or to be in a crowd, I realized that I often felt ashamed of both of those things.

With corsets, it's interesting when you put them on, realizing that's what women actually wore. They're just so constricting.

I'm realizing that a lot of people don't really care what happens to other people as long as it doesn't affect them.

What I saw when I went to France was that really good quality education and childcare is seen there as a completely normal part of everyday life.

There are ways that we, as a society, the laws that we write and the contracts we build, can try to actually increase people's ability to reap the reward from their own potential. But we put barriers in front of them.

In my 40s, I expect to finally reap the average-looking girl's revenge. I've entered the stage of life where you don't need to be beautiful; simply by being well-preserved and not obese, I would now pass for pretty.

Architecture is particularly difficult for women; there's no reason for it to be. I don't want to blame men or society, but I think it was for a long time, the clients were men, the building industry is all male.

The reason that a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.

I think reasonable people could agree that, at some point, there's enough income that someone should be expected to participate in the health-care system.

I think the notion of tax fairness is the reasonable thing to do.

Yes, I'm a reasonably good self-taught historian of the 1930s and '40s. I've never wanted to write about another time or place. I wouldn't know what to say about contemporary society.

While the world may feel entitled and have the power to pronounce an individual crazy, are there times when the innocent genius, the insightful individual or just the old grandmother may reasonably declare the world to be mad? Probably, but what hope or happiness would such an individual have?

It is not white nationalism to believe that countries like the United States would be better off with more babies. That belief can be held for racist reasons by racists, but it can also be held, reasonably and righteously, by people who worry about the economic consequences of demographic decline.

We need to get back to reasoning and thinking things through. The future generation is being brought up in greed and without a true understanding of civics. There is no more emphasis on knowledge and time. As a society we need to process ideas and understand what certain principles are based upon.

People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society.

Our main reasons for fearing males having sex with males is that you really had to construct a more powerful social role to keep men in their place than you did to keep women in their place.

People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.

There's never a dearth of reasons to shoot at the President.

I don't see myself as a rebel. Of course, it all depends on what you consider normal.

What I find interesting as a 40-year-old is the idea of trying to be a part of a pronounced, continuing independent culture. The basic tenet of America is that you rebel and then you get real.

I didn't have my parents to rebel against, but I had society, and that definitely is what they taught me. Just: Trust nothing.

Father John Misty imagines that he is a rebel. He is, but he does not realize what he is rebelling against.