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Quotes About Society

I tell lies sometimes. The last time I lied was a year ago. I absolutely detest lying. You could say that lying and silence are the two greatest sins of present day society. Actually, I lie a lot, and I'm always clamming up.
~ Haruki Murakami
Expression and communication are essential; without these, civilization ends.
~ Haruki Murakami
It seems as if, year after year, the world becomes a more difficult place to live.
~ Haruki Murakami
If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit.
~ Haruki Murakami
waste is the highest virtue one can achieve in an advanced capitalist society
~ Haruki Murakami
Are there any capitalist cats? Nakata asked
~ Haruki Murakami
Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for its use, but people won't necessarily follow them.
~ Haruki Murakami
These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hanse up their skirts. And when they graduate,they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh!
~ Haruki Murakami
Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I'm working class. Revolution or not, the working class will just keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn't just changing the name on city hall. But those guys don't know that - those guys with their big words. Tell me, Watanabe, have you ever seen a taxman?
~ Haruki Murakami
Girls my age never use the word "fair". Ordinary girls as young as I am are basically indifferent to whether things are fair or not. The central question for them is not whether something is fair but whether or not it's beautiful or will make them happy. "Fair" is a man's word, finally, but I can't help feeling that it is also exactly the right word for me now.
~ Haruki Murakami
Every person should decide for himself how happy, or unhappy, our society might be.
~ Haruki Murakami
One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues. -from Heart the Wind Sing
~ Haruki Murakami
Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society you might say. In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence. However, if we were constant;y talking year-round, and telling only the truth truth would probably lose some of its value.
~ Haruki Murakami
If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.
~ Haruki Murakami
The minute you leave your house, all phones sound alike.
~ Haruki Murakami
I do feel that I've managed to make something I could maybe call my own world ... over time ... little by little. And when I'm inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that, I am a weak person, that I bruise easily, don't you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing.
~ Haruki Murakami
Cause in Alphaville, you're not allowed to have deep feelings. So there's nothing like love. No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas." Kaoru wrinkles her brow. "'Irony'?" "Irony means taking an objective or inverted view of oneself or of someone belonging to oneself and discovering oddness in that.
~ Haruki Murakami
There are always far more people in the world who make things worse, rather than help out.
~ Haruki Murakami
I think serious readers of books are 5% of the population. If there are good TV shows or a World Cup or anything, that 5% will keep on reading books very seriously, enthusiastically. And if a society banned books, they would go into the forest and remember all the books. So I trust in their existence. I have confidence.
~ Haruki Murakami
Quiero llegar hasta donde pueda empleando todas mis fuerzas. Tomando lo que quiero, dejando lo que no quiero. Así es como vivo. Si meto la pata, me detengo y lo reconsidero. Si uno le da la vuelta a esta sociedad injusta, entiende que en el mundo puede explotar sus posibilidades. -Nagasawa
~ Haruki Murakami
Like, if I suggested to a school friend we do something, she could say, 'Sorry, I don't have any money'. Which is something I could never say if the situation was reversed. If I said I don't have any money', it would really mean I don't have any money'. It's sad. Like, if a pretty girl says I look terrible today, I don't want to go out,' that's OK, but if an ugly girl says the same thing people laugh at her. That's what the world was like for me.
~ Haruki Murakami
26. Caution about Instigators of Dissension: Division and disunion in society is created by elements that follow their doubts and pursue misdirected passions.  Such people solely rely on their personal opinions and vested interests rather than on reliable sources and consider their own judgment superior to that of their leader.[29]
~ Hassan Abbas
Surely there can be no more superficial people than the Japanese. They were not able to transcend the demon of economic development and as a result, we have the corruption of the world, the loss of ideals, and the worship of material things.
~ Hayao Miyazaki
Men were taught to have so much pride, to go out into the world and make something of themselves. This Depression was deeply humiliating. Since women were taught that they were worthless, they took poverty and hardship less personally.
~ Heather O'Neill