Quotes About Society

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

It's not society that holds us back, it's ourselves. We just blame society because not only is it easier but it's a nearly impossible weight to move. This way, we don't actually have to change.

marriage was an obsolete institution.

She could neither conform nor be happy in her unconformity. This she saw clearly now, and with cold anger at all the past futile effort. What a waste!

As if aware of her desire and her hesitation, Clare remarked thoughtfully: "You know, 'Rene, I've often wondered why more colored girls, girls like you and Margaret Hammer and Esther Dawson and—oh, lots of others—never 'passed' over.

She said: "It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.

Everybody seems to be here and a few more. But what I'm trying to find out is the name, status, and race of the blonde beauty out of the fairy-tale. She's dancing with Ralph Hazelton at the moment. Nice study in contrasts, that.

As certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.

If you feel you belong to things as they are, you won't hold up anyone in the alley no matter how hungry you may get. And you won't write anything that anyone will read a second time either.

these will suffice; who knows but we may be on a slope which leads down to aboriginal savagery. But of this 1 am sure: if we are to escape, we must not yield a foot upon demanding a fair field and an honest race to all ideas.

A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.

She was neither widow nor mother: she only yearned for the dignity of a woman who had once belonged, somewhere, to somebody. She had belonged to no one, for she had never wanted chick nor child. Her idea of home had been any side-alley entrance and a pint of tinted gin. All she had ever striven for was small change left lying by strangers on North Clark Street bars; and any man's bottle at all.

In this neighborhood, with only forty-five cents, you're a bum. But Sobotnik, even with two dollars, he's still a bum.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

In America if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal. You're nobody.

Without women, there would be perpetual war and chaos. With them, there was only chaos.

Also, after the Crash of '29, this building chalked up six jumpers

You criminalize what normal people want, and you make everybody a criminal. And when everybody's a criminal, nobody's a criminal.

Being a genius doesn't make you smart, happy, or successful. In fact, sometimes the opposite. Studies have shown that people with genius-level I.Q.s are often unhappy, alienated from the society around them, impatient with people of lesser intelligence, angry at how stupid and ignorant the world is, and generally self-absorbed and untrusting. In fact, they only trust themselves and they rarely take the advice of others.

The least free people in a free society are people like us who have a sworn duty to defend the constitution.

It struck him that the world was full of professional snoops, and it was sad that Americans didn't even trust Americans anymore.

The hotel demanded hard currency, which kept out the riffraff and the Reds.

they don't want their thinking or attitudes changed. They want their values and beliefs endorsed, and they want government and society to reflect their values and beliefs, not yours.

Daughters of the American Revolution don't have group sex because they don't want to have to write all those thank-you notes.