Quotes About Society

The human shapes moving past him in the streets of the city were physical objects without any meaning.

the usual looters' slogan of 'public welfare

If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!

La mayoría de las sociedades han sido regidas por los bárbaros y los hechiceros.

Just prove that a thing makes men happy—and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt.

They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant." "Darling, you take everything too seriously. One is not supposed to be intellectual at a ball. One is simply supposed to be gay." "How? By being stupid?

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed.

The public has a vital stake in natural resources, Jim, such as iron ore. The public can't remain indifferent to reckless, selfish waste by an anti-social individual. After all, private property is a trusteeship held for the benefit of society as a whole.

If I can't, then that would make it an absolute and you said there aren't any absolutes." "That's different." "How is it different?" "It's the government." "You mean, there aren't any absolutes except the government?" "I mean, if they say it's important, then it is.

the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society [...] reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life; it reveals a mind from which the reality of a human being has been wiped out

Si, antes de emprender alguna acción, tienes que obtener el permiso de la sociedad, no eres libre, te sea concedido ese permiso o no. Solamente un esclavo actúa bajo permiso. Un permiso no es un derecho.

In a world that proclaims the non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst - in such a world, the best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who

There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows.

Do you ever look at the people in the street? Aren't you afraid of them? I am. They move past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But that's not the substance of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work.

remembered what he had said to Dominique once: "A complicated piece of machinery, such as our society ... and by pressing your little finger against one spot ... the center of all its gravity ... you can make the thing crumble into a worthless heap of scrap iron ...

I saw that any man's desire for money he could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was damned as greed. - Francisco d'Anconia

She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought -- and never worried about it again.

para qué trabajar? Sabías que tu mísera manutención básica te la darían en cualquier caso, trabajases o no..., tu "asignación para casa y comida", la llamaban..., y por encima de esa miseria podías olvidarte de conseguir algo, no importa cuánto lo intentases.

But, after all, I did break one of your laws." "Well, what do you think they're for?

you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed.

El estatismo necesita la guerra; un país libre no. El estatismo sobrevive a través del saqueo; un país libre sobrevive produciendo.