Quotes About Society

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

I think the music reflects the state that the society is in. It doesn't suggest the state. I think the poets and musicians and artists are of the age - not only do they lead the age on, but they also reflect that age. [...] Like The Beatles. We came out of Liverpool and we reflected our background and we reflected our thoughts in what we sang, and that's all people are doing.

We insult her everyday on TV And wonder why she has no guts or confidence When she's young we kill her will to be free While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb

We make her bear and raise our children And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen We tell her, home is the only place she should be Then we complain that she's too unworldly to be our friend

They keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V. And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

Men hide to make love but practice violence in daylight

A working-class hero is something to be.

It's worth remembering also that Lincoln—and Shakespeare—had a lifetime to become who they were. Young people today don't, because society so sharply segregates general education, professional training, ascent within an organization, responsibility for it, and then retirement.

In ancient Greek the word 'idiot' meant anyone who wasn't a politician.

It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father of the Supreme Court justice, was not much overstating when he declared, "I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.

if it believes that it knows the truth and that it need not question its beliefs, then that society is more likely to enforce rigid decrees, and less likely to change. If it leaves room for doubt about the truth, it is more likely to be free and open. In

So the final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society. Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. By definition, civilization cannot survive that. Those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best.

Lippmann later called society "too big, too complex" for the average person to comprehend, since most citizens were "mentally children or barbarians. . . . Self-determination [is] only one of the many interests of a human personality." Lippmann urged that self-rule be subordinated to "order," "rights," and "prosperity.

I am Public Opinion. All men fear me!

Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. By definition, civilization cannot survive that.

WHILE SCIENCE was confronting nature, society began to confront the effects of nature. For this went beyond the ability of any individual or group of individuals to respond to. To have any chance in alleviating the devastation of the epidemic required organization, coordination, implementation. It required leadership and it required that institutions follow that leadership.

Man might be defined as "modern" largely to the extent that he attempts to control, as opposed to adjust himself to, nature

execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society.

positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society.

In 1918 the lies of officials and of the press never allowed the terror to condense into the concrete. The public could trust nothing and so they knew nothing. Society is, ultimately, based on trust; as trust broke down, people became alienated not only from those in authority, but from each other.

first great collision between a natural force and a society that included individuals who refused either to submit to that force or to simply call upon divine intervention to