Quotes About Society

The government isn't the mob, Harry. Aren't they? I asked. Pay them money every year to protect you, and God help you if you don't.

They get caught up in right and wrong. Or right and left. But none of that stuff matters if people aren't free." Titania

They say civilization is a thin veneer over barbarism. Chicago stood waiting for the first tearing sound.

The fears of an old woman in a society that does not love or revere the wisdom of age as it once did.

If we only have great companies, we will merely have a prosperous society, not a great one. Economic growth and power are the means, not the definition, of a great nation.

My definition of LUNATIC ASYLUM: A place where lunatics are created.

The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense. from The Beast God Forgot to Invent

Cliff, a cell phone isn't a toy. It's a very lucky technical miracle for all of us. It's a prime weapon against our essential loneliness. I can't say I've ever felt that lonely.

Combien de fois avons-nous entendu dire que cinq millions d'enfants se couchent tous les soirs en ayant faim ? Sans doute moins souvent que toutes les fois où nous avons lu ou vu des articles où l'on faisait l'éloge de la richesse.

Know something?" Brandon said. "I think the most interesting people I'll meet these days will be criminals—or people about to become criminals.

the U.S., also has the highest rates of suicide, drug abuse, murder, incarcerations, and other negative social factors. Our economy is based on fighting wars—killing people and ravaging the planet—trading paper (mergers, derivatives, etc.), and selling each other things most of us don't need. Meanwhile our planet is drowning in pollution, people are starving, our resources are dissipating, and our animals and plants are disappearing at shocking rates.

When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder ... the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

Or society places a supreme value on control -- hiding what you feel. Our culture mocks primitive cultures and prides itself on supression of natural instincts and impulses.

Our culture mocks primitive cultures and prides itself on suppression of natural instincts and impulses.

I don't think there should even be a president, man. I think we should have total democracy.

Lions in the street and roaming Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming A beast caged in the heart of a city The body of his mother Rotting in the summer ground He fled the town He went down South and crossed the border Left the chaos and disorder Back there over his shoulder One morning he awoke in a green hotel With a strange creature groaning beside him Sweat oozed from its shiny skin Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin

He was part of this river of cars, aiding its sluggish tide and in turn aided by it. Without losing his identity, free to turn out of the tide when he chose, he still belonged to something.

They had no hope of anything more, no comprehension that there might be anything more. In a sense they were an autonomous body, functioning within a society which was organized to grind them down. The law did not protect them; for them it was merely an instrument of harassment, a means of moving them on when it was against their interest to move, or detaining them where it was to their disadvantage to stay.

Néha úgy vélem, épp emiatt nem haladunk úgy, mint a nemzet többi része. Az emberek olyan sok idÅ't töltenek távol a munkájuktól mások meglincselése miatt, és olyan sok pénzt költenek kötélre meg kerozinra, meg arra, hogy elÅ'zetesen leigyák magukat, meg a többi szükséges dologra, hogy a gyakorlati dolgokra nem marad se túl sok pénz, se munkaóra.

The most controversial sentence I ever wrote was not about abortion, gay marriage, the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, elections, or anything to do with national or church politics. It was a statement about the founding of the United States. Here's the sentence: "The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.

For people of faith and conscience, these issues about implicit racial bias and the realities of white privilege in our society are not just political matters; they are moral and religious questions.

Gimmicks? Here we go again. I'm tired of people sayin' we rely on gimmicks. What is this? The world is nothin' but a big gimmick isn't it? Wars, napalm bombs and all that. People being burned-up on TV...Yes, we do.

Shoelaces are the first way society ties up the individual.

Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That's about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today's even greater scourge?