Quotes About Society

Once in a while, we need the hard Left to pipe up.

I have been interested in pirates since I was about 8 years old. The idea of people deciding, sometimes at a moment's notice, to throw over the rules and restrictions of society - it was just irresistible.

Men want their women to be good little girls who never do anything, while they get to be pirates and do everything. And it never changes.

This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook.

Wall Street sees a social fabric or social contract as inefficiencies, which need to be removed.

Same way we have enough money to bail out Wall Street, we need to put a down payment on Main Street.

Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.

I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.

I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is war that drives us forward. It is war that makes the major turns. It makes Wall Street function; it makes all the bastards in the Balkans function.

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute.

We have seen that in this country in the last few years, particularly on Wall Street, with the rise of the old human frailty of greed. This occurs when people begin to serve only their own needs to the detriment of everyone else.

I've never been on Wall Street. And I care about Wall Street for one reason and one reason only because what happens on Wall Street matters to Main Street.

'The Good Guy' is a totally differently-looking New York than 'How To Make It' portrays. 'The Good Guy' is all about Wall Street and that culture, which 'How To Make It' touches on, but 'How To Make It' also is downtown, Lower East Side loft parties, cool clubs, Brooklyn and that world.

Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work.

Just as Wall Street needs to break the hold of the bonus culture, which drives risk-taking that is rational for individuals but damaging to the financial system, so science must break the tyranny of the luxury journals. The result will be better research that better serves science and society.

Trends suck you in, anywhere in the world, patterns you don't even see. It's so easy. Look at Wall Street - look at any sports team in the world - there are trends. Look at exercising. Nothing but patterns and trends, and that's what I started to see. Like a flock of birds all flying in one direction.

In the 70s Sweden was innocent, but we've lost that. Society has become less idealistic and everything is about how much money you have in your wallet.

In a consumer society, people wallow in things, fascinating, enjoyable things. If you define your value by the things you acquire and surround yourself with, being excluded is humiliating.

Music used to be a more personal thing, and it defined who you were. Now it's like wallpaper.

As artists we need to stop making work only for gallery or museum walls, or the coffee tables of collectors.

There are many more serial killers living outside the prison walls than inside.

'Crumbling' Down' is a very political song that I wrote with my childhood friend George Green. Reagan was president - he was deregulating everything, and the walls were crumbling down on the poor.

The thing that's very puzzling to somebody who's been in Pakistan repeatedly since 1983 is lots of people live in compounds with high walls in Pakistan. I mean, that's so completely routine. In fact, you know, it would be un-routine to have the reverse.