Quotes About Society

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness ... because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity.

A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. . . . In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature

Republics are anti-natural, artificial, and derive from reflection: consequently there are also very few of them in the entire history of mankind...

El mundo es malo, como se viene diciendo desde hace mucho tiempo: los salvajes se comen unos a otros y los civilizados se engañan mutuamente, y a eso es a lo que damos el nombre del progreso.

Was für ein Neuling ist doch der, welcher wähnt, Geist und Verstand zu zeigen wäre ein Mittel, sich in der Gesellschaft beliebt zu machen! Vielmehr erregen sie, bei der unberechenbar überwiegenden Mehrzah, einen Haß und Groll.

Si se pudiese castrar a todos los canallas y encerrar en conventos a todas las muchachas tontas, dotar de un harén a todos los hombres de carácter noble, y de verdaderos hombres a todas las muchachas inteligentes y sensatas, pronto nacería una generación que eclipsaría la época de Pericles.

In their hearts women think that it is the men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it – if possible during their husband's life, but, at any rate, after his death

Inspira tal horror el egoísmo que inventamos la cortesía para ocultarlo como una parte vergonzosa de nosotros mismos.

Die allermeiste Gesellschaft ist so beschaffen, dass wer sie gegen die Einsamkeit vertauscht einen guten Handel macht.

If we lived in a less healthist, capitalist, and hierarchical society, which spent less time finding ways to exclude and disenfranchise people and more time finding ways to include and enhance the potentialities of everyone, then there wouldn't have been so much for me to overcome

That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.

Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides bought with World Bank loans.

Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.

Reading Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar bridges the gap between what most Indians are schooled to believe in and the reality we experience every day of our lives.

Normalcy was declared. (Normalcy was always a declaration.)

Reverend Ipe realized that his daughter had by now developed a "reputation" and was unlikely to find a husband. He decided that since she couldn't have a husband there was no harm in her having an education.

It was not entirely his fault that he lived in a society where a man's death could be more profitable than his life had ever been.

Marxism was a simple substitute for Christianity. Replace God with Marx, Satan with the bourgeoisie, Heaven with a classless society, the Church with the Party

there were only three kinds of people in this city – security guards, people who need security guards, and thieves.

In an unconscious gesture of television-enforced democracy

Is this Democracy or Demon Crazy?

Like cities. Fizzy, effervescent, simulating the illusion of life while the planet they had plundered died around them.

And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.