Quotes About Society

The toiling masses,' and all that. This country has no toiling masses, we have Dan at the diner and Verne in the mine and Jerry in the steel mill and Burdette at the filling station and so on. They don't toil, for Christ's sake, they do a day's work and then they go home and have a beer. You can't get them into a mass for anything. If there's a good ball game on TV they won't come out to see the president ride by.

Extremism, he says, is the universal tuberculosis of modern society: a world infection of resentment and hatred generated by rapid change and the breakdown of old values. In the stabler nations the tubercles are sealed off in scar tissue, and these are the harmless lunatic movements. In times of social disorder, depression, war, or revolution, the germs can break forth and infect the nation. This has happened in Germany. It could happen anywhere, even in the United States.

It's occurred to me that our human values, our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, evolved in simpler times, before there were machines.

They were invited to fine homes and exclusive clubs. It was a great war.

our human values, our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, evolved in simpler times, before there were machines.

Political indifference is closely linked to ethical depravity.

If we do not restore the Institution of Property we cannot escape restoring the Institution of Slavery; there is no third course.

los bárbaros construyen sus casas separadas, y los hombres civilizados, juntas.

It is further an admitted historical truth, which no one denies, that such an institution putting forth such a claim has been present among mankind for many centuries. Many through antagonism or lack of knowledge deny the identity of the Catholic Church today with the original Christian society.

Capitalism must be kept alive by non-capitalist methods.

economics are but an expression of the mind and do not (as the poor blind slaves of the great cities think) mould the mind.

Such was the transformation which had come over European society in the course of ten Christian centuries. Slavery had gone, and in its place had come that establishment of free possession which seemed so normal to men, and so consonant to a happy human life. No particular name was then found for it. To-day, and now that it has disappeared, we must construct an awkward one, and say that the Middle Ages had instinctively conceived and brought into existence the Distributive State.

Some Generations ago a man challenged to tell you why he forswore his manhood in any particular regard would have answered you that it was because he feared punishment at the hands of the law; to-day he will tell you that it is because he fears unemployment... In the Seventeenth Century a man feared to go to Mass lest the Judges should punish him. To-day a man fears to speak in favor of some social theory which he holds to be just and true lest his master should punish him.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Your generation was promised a decent husband and maybe a job on the side. Mine, I said with some nostalgia and a hint of disappointment, mine was promised jet packs.

For I have seen the cities of men; and learned their manners.

We might suspect that this attempt to balance the books through reciprocity was just the product of civilized parenting … if it weren't for the fact that every society that's been studied, no matter how advanced or primitive, has a principle of give and take.

Inner-judges measure our contribution to the social learning machine by two yardsticks: (1) our personal sense of mastery; and (2) the hints we get from those around us telling us whether they want us eagerly or couldn't care less if we disappeared like a blackhead from the face of decent society.

Memes have an ultimate ambition: taking vast chunks of the world into their possession and restructuring it according to their form.

How much our society values its children can be measured by how well they are treated and protected.

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic.

Western society, and especially the United States, greatly overuses prisons. If restorative justice were taken seriously, our reliance on prisons would be reduced and the nature of prisons would change significantly. However, restorative justice approaches may also be used in conjunction with, or parallel to, prison sentences. They are not necessarily an alternative to incarceration.

Politics is pointless if it does nothing to enhance the beauty of our lives.

The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.