Quotes About Society

The tavern will compare favorably with the church.

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering from want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live.

The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind.

When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon--I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

Le meilleur gouvernement est celui qui ne gouverne pas du tout; et quand les hommes y seront prêts, tel sera le genres de gouvernement qu'ils auront. Un gouvernement, au mieux, n'est qu'un expédient ; mais la plupart d'entre eux sont d'habitude, et tous les gouvernements sont quelquefois nuisibles.

The life which society proposes to me to live is so artificial and complex—bolstered up on many weak supports, and sure to topple down at last—that no man surely can ever be inspired to live it.

I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.

When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago. I

Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force?

The false society of men— —for earthly greatness All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.

We had been told in Bangor of a man who lived alone, a sort of hermit, at that dam [on the Allegash], to take care of it, who spent his time tossing a bullet from one hand to the other, for want of employment. This sort of tit-for-tat intercourse between his two hands, bandying to and fro a leaden subject, seems to have been his symbol for society.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.

It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages. I

La massa degli uomini conduce una vita di quieta disperazione; quella che si chiama rassegnazione è disperazione istituzionalizzata.

But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It

O convívio social, geralmente, é banal demais

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer.

books are the society we keep... Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Muita gente se preocupa com os monumentos do ocidente e do oriente, quer saber quem os construiu. De minha parte, gostaria de saber quem nessa época deixou de construí-los, quem estava acima de tais ninharias.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

La meta de un buen gobierno es darle más valor a la vida; la de un mal gobierno, restarle valor.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.