Quotes About Society

The most enjoyable element of Kentucky society, she observed, was the endless stories: the misfortunes of families, gossip about neighbors—every anecdote served up beautifully formed and with a punch-line that would leave the table rocking with laughter.

There is nothing more disconcerting to passers-by than to see a man in a wheelchair pleading with a woman who is meant to be looking after him.

Just because they're wealthy doesn't make them better parents.

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude. As

Pastor, you know you're talking to a room full of happily unmarried women here, right?

The woman of the mountains leads a difficult life, while the man is lord of the household. Whether he works, visits, or roams through the woods with dog and gun is nobody's business but his own. . . . He is entirely unable to understand any interference in his affairs by society; if he turns his corn into "likker," he is dealing with what is his. • WPA, The WPA Guide to Kentucky

there seemed to be such a high cost to anything a woman chose to do with her life, unless she simply aimed low.

Men expected women to be calm, collected, cooperative, and chaste. Eccentric conduct was frowned upon, and any female who got too far out of line could be in serious trouble. Virginia Culin Roberts, 'The Women Was Too Tough

They had been exotic to one another, a suggestion of a different world to two people who were each trapped, in their own way, by the expectations of those around them.

What cultural geography seeks to do, therefore, is explore the intersections of context and culture.

Design is about humanizing technology or finding ways for technology to integrate into the fabric of our culture.

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

The family is the basic societal unit. As such, it is the foundation for society's prosperity, order, happiness, and values.

If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.

The bringing-about of order is the first and fundamental task of government. We accept limits on our rights for the sake of a larger social compact all the time.

History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us, really, would, looking back, wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other?

We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.

Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?

We see ourselves as nonconformist, but I think all of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age.

We're creating a culture where people feel constantly surveilled, where people are afraid to be themselves.

Psychopaths [make] the world go around...society [is] an expression of that particular sort of madness...I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?

Serial killers ruin families,' shrugged Bob. 'Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.

Heck, I remember that I used to dress up to take an airplane flight; today, it looks homeless people fill up the planes.

Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we're in a battle between tyranny and freedom - it's a series of pendulum swings.