Quotes About Society

he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely; and present-day society, with its hurried pace and its mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to these unhappy souls.

Those who cry out the truth to an indifferent world too often weary, fall silent or come to doubt their own wit.

He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in.

Any society contains propaganda, but it is important to distinguish this from art and to preserve the purity and independence of the practice of art. A good society contains many different artists doing many different things. A bad society coerces artists because it knows that they can reveal all kinds of truths.

Eccentrics with unseeing eyes glided through, savouring amid so much society their own particular loneliness and private sins and sorrows.

On this planet . . . many things are 'the rule' which are thoroughly evil and pernicious.

You don't know what it is to want a man, any man. I wish I could discover some respectable male prostitutes, like civil servants or university dons who do it in their spare time for a bit of pocket money, there must be such people.

I wonder if it's harder to be good in this age?

It's madness — Madness is where we live now.

I was brimming with anger and hatred. I hated, not society, puny sociologists' abstraction, I hated the universe. I wanted to cause it pain in return for the pain it caused me.

There's nothing wrong with pornography. It's good for you. If politicians stuck to pornography the world wouldn't be in such a mess.

There were many people . . . who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely; and present-day society, with its hurried pace and its mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to these unhappy souls. Work, as it now is, . . . can rarely offer satisfaction to the half-contemplative.

There were many people, she said, and Michael was but too ready to credit her since he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely; and present-day society, with its hurried pace and its mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to these unhappy souls.

Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines.

Society conspires to make a newly wed couple feel virtuous. Marriage is a symbol of goodness, though it is only a symbol.

A versatile Bohemianism had rendered him classless.

Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.

She's nothing to do with my shit, but fuck it, none of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy.

Ah remember walkin along Princes Street wi Spud, we both hate walkin along that hideous street, deadened by tourists and shoppers, the twin curse ay modern capitalism.

Ma best mate is possibly Tommy. Cares aboot things, aboot people; maybe just a wee bit too much for the kind ay world we're compelled tae live in.

Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whut they huv tae offer.

Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting on a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.

The trouble with people like him is that they think that they can brush off people like me. Like I was nothing. They don't understand the type of world we're living in now, all those menaced souls clamouring for attention and recognition.

We don't really communicate […]. We talk all right, talk in that strange language we've evolved for the purposes of avoiding communication. That non-language we've created. Perhaps it's a sign that civilisation is regressing. Something is anyway.