Quotes About Society

If ever there was a guilty age, this is it. Guilt and hysteria. And at the bottom of it all, like an evil dragon, lies Fear.

Als je verkiest met de kudde mee te lopen ben je immuun. Als je geaccepteerd en geapprecieerd wilt worden moet je jezelf tot een nulliteit maken, jezelf zo maken dat je niet van de kudde te onderscheiden bent. Je mag wel dromen, mits je droomt wat miljoenen anderen tegelijk dromen.

The world is divided into three parts of which two parts are meat balls and spaghetti and the other part a huge syphilitic chancre. (revised, correct quote)

The ten-o' clock breakfasters began to appear: nervous, little men, morose, preoccupied, who wiped their plates with crusts of bread; rude, massive women who, like primitive idols dug out of the soil, had grown rotten in the years; flowery dandies with repulsive faces, reminding him uncomfortably of illustrations in medical tracts.

The only law which is really lived up to whole-heartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity.

In niets onderscheidden ze zich van de heikneuters waar ze later hun voeten op zouden vegen. Het waren nullen in elke betekenis van het woord, nullen die de kern vormen van een fatsoenlijk en jammerlijk burgerdom. Ze sliepen best en klaagde nooit; ze waren niet vrolijk en niet ongelukkig. De onverschilligen die Dante naar het voorportaal van de Hel heeft verwezen. De lui van de bovenlaag.

De wiegen der beschaving zijn de verpestende riolen van de wereld, het knekelhuis waarin de stinkende baarmoeders hun bloederige pakjes vlees en been toevertrouwen.

Mijn vrienden daarentegen verschansten zich nog steviger in de kleine loopgraaf van het begrijpen, een loopgraaf die ze voor zichzelf gegraven hadden. Ze stierven heel comfortabel in hun bedje van begrijpen, werden nuttige leden van de maatschappij. Ik had medelijden met hen, en al heel gauw liet ik ze, zonder de minste spijt, één voor één in de steek.

Despite all the talk about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, electoral freedom, and so on, I dare say it would be a shock to know what the common man thinks about the problems which confront the world. The common man is always cleverly set off one against the other, children are always ruled out, young people are ordered to conform and obey, and the views of the wise, the saintly, the true servers of mankind, are forever scorned as impractical.

This is the melting-pot, the seat of a great human experiment. Beautiful words, full of noble, idealistic sentiment. Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous

The age demands violence, but we are getting only abortive explosions. Revolutions are nipped in the bud, or else succeed too quickly. Passion is quickly exhausted. Men fall back on ideas, comme d'habitude. Nothing is proposed that can last more than twenty-four hours. We are living a million lives in the space of a generation.

If you elect to join the herd you are immune. To be accepted and appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself indistinguishable from the herd. You may dream, if you dream alike. But if you dream something different, you are not in America, of America American, but a Hottentot in Africa, or a Kalmuck, or a chimpanzee. The moment you have a different thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different you find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island or Iceland.

Directly across the street the Ciné Combat offers its distinguished clientele Metropolis.

I understand full well that it is not the mob which creates the films we see—not technically, at any rate. But in a deeper sense it is the mob which actually creates the films. For the first time in the history of art the mob has dictated what the artist should do.

Germaine was different. There was nothing to tell me so from her appearance. Nothing to distinguish her from the other trollops who met each afternoon and evening at the Cafe de l'Elephant.

Zamans?z doÄŸmuÅŸ insanlar vard?r; ülkesiz, s?n?fs?z ve geleneksiz doÄŸmuÅŸ insanlar vard?r. YaÅŸam? tek ba??na sürdürmeyi seçenler deÄŸil tam olarak; sürgünler, gönüllü sürgünler. Bunlar her zaman da duygusal deÄŸildir: belirli bir ÅŸeye ait deÄŸillerdir yaln?zca - yani hiçbir yere ait deÄŸildirler.

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money, or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

It didn't matter to me whether I was intact or falling to pieces. I was attending a spectacle: the crumbling of our civilization.

el mundo nunca deja morir de hambre a una mujer guapa.

over the dull cranium of Zola the chimneys are belching pure coke, while the Madonna of Sandwiches listens with cabbage ears to the bubbling of the gas tanks, those beautiful bloated toads which squat by the roadside.

Each one is traveling his own way ad though the earth be rotting with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard.

Here we are, we the people of the United States: the greatest people on earth, so we think. We have everything—everything it takes to make people happy. We have land, water, sky and all that goes with it. We could become the great shining example of the world; we could radiate peace, joy, power, benevolence. But there are ghosts all about, ghosts whom we can't seem to lay hands on. We are not happy, not contented, not radiant, not fearless.

Comprendo de repente lo terriblemente civilizado que soy... la necesidad que tengo de gente, conversación, libros, teatro, música, cafés, bebidas, etc. Es terrible ser civilizado, porque cuando llegas al fin del mundo no tienes nada que te ayude a soportar el terror de la soledad.

Tenía que aprender a vivir con la escoria, a nadar como una rata de alcantarilla o ahogarme. Si optas por incorporarte al rebaño, eres inmune. Para que te acepten y te aprecien, tienes que anularte, volverte indistinguible del rebaño.