Quotes About Society

Whenever an economic sector cloisters itself behind opaqueness, it will begin taking environmental, social, and economic shortcuts. Integrity occurs when people can see what's going in at the front door and what's coming out the back door. Absent that accountability, you lose integrity.

I do think anger aimed at evil is a good thing. I do not think it helps any culture to dismiss elements that deprive the populace of righteousness.

I would suggest that a culture that views its pigs as just mechanical objects to be reprogrammed and manipulated will view its citizens the same way, and ultimately God the same way.

For many years the conviction has grown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play.

The view we take in the following pages is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning. Even those activities which aim at the immediate satisfaction of vital needs--hunting, for instance--tend, in archaic society, to take on the play form. Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhance its value. It is through this playing that society expresses its interpretation of life and the world.

This levelling down and democratization of men's fashions is far from unimportant. The whole transformation of mind and society since the French Revolution is expressed in it.

The supersession of the round dance, choral and figure dances by dancing à deux, whether this take the form of gyrating as in the waltz or polka or the slitherings and slidings and even acrobatics of contemporary dancing, is probably to be regarded as a symptom of declining culture. There

But the way an eloi has to darken her eyelashes every morning, cover her skin with colored cream, powder her nose and forehead all day so it doesn't shine, freshen her lipstick over and over, and then take it all off at night. It's like the myth of Sisyphus in Hades, rolling the rock up the hill just to watch it roll down again.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon 's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally. { Letter to Thomas Jefferson , November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits }

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? { Letter to Thomas Jefferson , May 19, 1821 }

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

We hear very often declarations on the demoralizing tendency of war, but as much as I hate war, I cannot be of the opinion that frequent wars are so corrupting to human nature as long peaces.

If ever there was a body of men who merited eternal damnation on earth and in hell, it is this Society of (Ignatius de) Loyola.

As we learn to embrace our authentic longings and feelings— and cultivate self-empathy and the corresponding compassion toward others—our society will gradually evolve in a direction that is more tolerant, humane, and enlightened.

Friendship with children creates obedient people in society.

Friendship with children eliminates the propensity for suicide in society.

Are you a Bolshevik?' 'More an anarchist, I like to think. Anyway, I'm quite determined to bring down the settled order of British Society. Once I've dealt with Franco and Hitler that is.' She stood. 'Perhaps we'd better go in and have tea before you start the revolution.' Miller clambered to his feet. 'Ah, in this country even the revolution stops for tea,' he said.

My clerk will discuss with you the list of new customers in the meantime. These hard times seem very good for business. People always seem to want money…' 'The price they pay for living in a mercantile society, sir,' said Wicks.

Man is only lovable in the multitude, and at a good distance.