Quotes About Society

What does Madame Schinner say to all this?" pursued the count; "for I believe you married, out of love, the beautiful Adelaide de Rouville, the protegee of old Admiral de Kergarouet; who, by the bye, obtained for you the order for the Louvre ceilings through his nephew, the Comte de Fontaine.

El contraste entre un lujo exagerado y una exagerada miseria es lo que impresiona antes que nada.

You are so unlucky as to walk off with something or other belonging to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a curiosity in the Place du Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million, and you are pointed out in every salon as a model of virtue. And you pay thirty millions for the police and the courts of justice, for the maintenance of law and order! A pretty slate of things it is!

Trasladada a París, una mujer que en provincias pasa por ser bonita no llama la menor atención, porque solo es bella según el refrán que reza que «en el país de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey».

It is your manner, my dear. When a young man comes up to speak to you, you look so serious that a spiteful person might believe you doubtful of your own virtue. You seem to fear lest a smile should undo you. You really look as if you were asking forgiveness of God for the sins that may be committed around you. The world, my dearest, is not a convent. — But, as you mentioned your dress, I may confess to you that it is no less a duty to conform to the customs and fashions of Society.

Su genio triunfaría tarde o temprano, como el de tantos otros, sus predecesores que se habían impuesto a la sociedad; ¡entonces le amarían las mujeres! El ejemplo de Napoléon, tan fatal para el siglo XIX por las pretensiones que inspira a tanta gente mediocre , se apareció ante Lucien, quien lanzó sus cálculos al viento reprochándose haberlos hecho. Así estaba hecho Lucien, iba del bien al mal y del mal al bien con la misma facilidad.

La Société française allait être l'historien, je ne devais être que le secrétaire.

Corruption is powerful in the world: talent is scarce. So corruption is the instrument of swarming mediocrity, and you will feel its point everywhere. You will see wives whose husbands have six thousand francs a year, all told, spend more than ten thousand on a dress. You will see officials with a salary of twelve hundred francs buy estates.

This is the title of Balzac's monumental series of interlinked novels and stories, which depict French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy, from 1815 to 1848. The series comprises 91 finished works and 46 unfinished works, with some only existing as titles.

Quand on connaît Paris, on ne croit à rien de ce qui s'y dit, et on ne dit rien de ce qui s'y fait.

L'homme n'est ni bon ni méchant, il naît avec des instincts et des aptitudes ; la Société, loin de le dépraver, comme l'a prétendu Rousseau, le perfectionne, le rend meilleur ; mais l'intérêt développe aussi ses penchants mauvais. Le christianisme, et surtout le catholicisme, étant, comme je l'ai dit dans le Médecin de Campagne, un système complet de répression des tendances dépravées de l'homme, est le plus grand élément d'Ordre Social.

They hated each other's opinions, but they valued each other's character. If such conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires some form of antagonism.

We shall see no more great ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England.

Society, like nature, is a jealous power, and will have not her rights encroached on, or her system set at naught.

Egész Párizs odagy?lik hozzá, ahogy a cs?cselék lepi el a Grève teret, ha kivégzés készül. Azért mennek oda, hogy lássák, tudja-e leplezni fájdalmát ez az asszony, tud-e szépen meghalni. Nem rémes?

a woman of questionable morals, a writer for the stage; frequenting theatres and actors; squandering her fortune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a devilish society, in short. She writes books herself, and has taken a false name by which she is better known, they tell me, than by her own. She seems to be a sort of circus woman who never enters a church except to look at the pictures.

SOCIETY PRACTISES NONE of the virtues it demands from individuals: every hour it commits crimes, but the crimes are committed in words; it paves the way for evil actions with a jest; it degrades nobility of soul by ridicule;

Customs are reflection of the people and the law is reflection of country's reason.

Clarissa Harlowe

Setting aside all the religious question,' my uncle said, 'I would remark to your Excellency that Nature only owes us life, and that it is society that owes us happiness

Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and capabilities; society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau asserts, improves him, makes him better; but self-interest also develops his evil tendencies. Christianity, above all, Catholicism, being — as I have pointed out in the Country Doctor (le Medecin de Campagne) — a complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, is the most powerful element of social order.

Society acts like an ocean: after some great accident, it regains it's flat surface, it's usual flow, and erases it's trace of agitation of it's unsatisfied interests.

Noble natures cannot dwell in this world,

Obey society?" cried the Marquise, with an involuntary shudder. "Eh! monsieur, it is the source of all our woes. God laid down no law to make us miserable; but mankind, uniting together in social life, have perverted God's work. Civilization deals harder measure to us women than nature does. Nature imposes upon us physical suffering which you have not alleviated; civilization has developed in us thoughts and feelings which you cheat continually.