Quotes About Society

In the past men were handsome and great (now they are children and dwarfs), but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world.

La política, amenazada por el terrorismo, ha dado vida a los miembros de una casta condenada a no saber nada del país que debe gobernar. Casta sí, pero en el sentido de los parias indios, despojados del contacto con los demás seres humanos.

I could write the political history of those years based on how Red Label gradually gave way to twelve-year-old Ballantine and then to single malt.

Here, on the one hand, nobody respects silence any more. On the other, it is respected too much. Here, instead of talking or remaining silent, we should act.

Por todo lo cual, estaba reflexionando que, si a veces la religión es o ha sido el opio del pueblo, quizá más a menudo ha sido su cocaína

The Prime Directive is a nice ideal, but have you noticed it never works in practice?

It was piecework, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some wild beast in a menagerie.

the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the man who minded his own business and did his work—why, they would speed him up till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him into the gutter.

Just what, answered the other, would be the productive capacity of society if the present resources of science were utilized, we have no means of ascertaining; but we may be sure it would exceed anything that would sound reasonable to minds inured to the ferocious barbarities of capitalism. After

Everybody agreed that the styles for that summer of 1914 were the most extreme since the Restoration

in a society dominated by the fact of commercial competition, money is necessarily the test of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power. So

Truly it seemed that a great people had gone mad; but it is a fact well known to alienists that you cannot convince a madman of his own condition, and only make him madder by trying.

What, then, was the difference between America and Moscow? The "muckraker" said it was a question of who owned the state. In America the people were supposed to own it, but most of the time the big businessmen bought it away from them. "It is privilege which corrupts politics," was his phrase.

That was the pattern of this new society, as Lanny came to know it; boundless cruelty combined with bland and pious lying. The Fascisti would develop falsehood into a new science and a new art; they would teach it to one dictator after another, until half the human race would no longer have any means of telling truth from falsehood.

We have a flabby public opinion which would wring its hands in anguish if we took the labor leader by the scruff of his neck, backed him up against a wall, and filled him with lead. Countries which consider themselves every bit as civilized as we do not hesitate about such matters for a moment. Whenever

if we don't break down England's caste system, we'll find this war was hardly worth fighting." Lanny agreed with all that; but he wanted to shake his head sadly when the flyer went on to say: "There will be a different England after this war. Our people will never be content with the old life, after the sacrifices they have made." Lanny had heard exactly the same words from Alfy's father during World War I, before this youngster had been born.

solemnly ordain: "There shall be no reprisals." That was the pattern of this new society, as Lanny came to know it; boundless cruelty combined with bland and pious lying. The Fascisti would develop falsehood into a new science and a new art; they would teach it to one dictator after another, until half the human race would no longer have any means of telling truth from falsehood.

The Italians were tireless in giving assurances to their friends; and every evening you could hear the voice of the American poet, Ezra Pound, speaking in English from a station on the Italian Riviera, ridiculing the idea that the ignorant rabble was fitted to govern any country, and hailing Fascism and its "corporate state" as the form of the future society.

But you know how our kind of people are; we don't like violence and find it hard to believe in. Very sadly I'm beginning to wonder if we Socialists aren't caught between two millstones and destined to be ground up. We think that when we've educated the people and got a majority of the votes, the matter is settled. That is supposed to be the rule in the political game.

Of course it was terrible that men went to war and killed one another; but for that you had to blame nature, not the Budd family.

She was part of the machine she tended, and every faculty that was not needed for the machine was doomed to be crushed out of existence.

The reply was: "Whom shall I say, sir?"—in smart society the only persons who bother with grammar are the butler and the social secretary.

For when you let down the bars and admitted the right to lie and to cheat, you were undermining the very bases upon which human societies are built. Particularly when you admitted the right of political parties to lie and cheat, for how, then, could anybody have faith in them? How could their own followers know what they were or what they would become?

a sort of Frankenstein creation known as "the economic man," and a deity known as "laissez faire," which meant in cruder language "each for himself and the devil take the hindmost.