Quotes About Society

Only those who secretly propagate the admiration of beauty conspire effectively against today's world

When nothing in society deserves respect, we should fashion for ourselves in solitude new silent loyalties

That Christianity may not solve social problems is no reason to commit apostasy except for those who forget that it never promised to solve them.

The modern mentality does not conceive that order can be imposed without resorting to police regulations.

Heinrich Heine: "Wir wollen hier auf Erden schon das Himmelreich errichten." Aber welches denn, Heine? Das sozialistische Paradies, von dem sie in der Konsumgesellschaft träumen, oder die Konsumgesellschaft, von der sie im sozialistischen Paradies träumen.

Heinrich Heine: "We want to establish the kingdom of heaven here on earth." But which one, Heine? The socialist paradise they dream of in consumer society, or the consumer society they dream of in socialist paradise. — Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

Heinrich Heine: "We want to establish the kingdom of heaven here on earth." But which one, Heine? The socialist paradise they dream of in consumer society, or the consumer society they dream of in socialist paradise.

Grave problems never frighten the fool. Those men who are disquieted, for example, by the qualitative deterioration of a society, make him laugh.

There are fewer ambitious individuals in the world today than individuals who believe they are morally obliged to be ambitious.

Democracy celebrates the cult of humanity on a pyramid of skulls.

Identifying the bourgeois class with the bourgeois mentality tricks the enemies of the bourgeoisie. The liquidation of a bourgeois class in the modern world is, in effect, nothing more than a slaughter that does not imply the abolition of a bourgeois mentality that already dominates all of society.

History exhibits two types of anarchy: that which emanates from a plurality of forces and that which derives from a plurality of weaknesses.

La violencia no basta para destruir una civilización. Cada civilización muere de la indiferencia ante los valores peculiares que la fundan.

A civilization's memory resides in the continuity of its institutions. The revolution that interrupts a civilization's memory, by destroying those institutions, does not relieve society of a bothersome caparison that is paralyzing it, but merely forces it to start over.

Life" has so obviously become the highest goal of the modern world that whoever lives for something else — even if it's eating — arouses our sympathy.

When he repudiates rites, man reduces himself to an animal that copulates and eats.

If liberty is to last, it should be the goal of social organization and not the starting point.

Toda sociedade que se crê senhora de sua história, que se sente segura de seus propósitos, convicta da excelência de seus princípios e persuadida de possuir a verdade, tiraniza e oprime.

The modern clergy declare that Christianity seeks to solve earthly problems—thereby confusing it with utopia.

Los políticos, en la democracia, son los condensadores de la imbecilidad.

Leftists and rightists merely argue about who is to have possession of industrial society. The reactionary longs for its death.

Ce siècle sombre lentement dans un marécage de sperme et de merde. Lorsqu'il traitera des événements actuels, le futur historien devra enfiler des gants.

Die Idee der "freien Entfaltung der Persönlichkeit" scheint ausgezeichnet, solange man nicht auf Individuen stößt, deren Persönlichkeit sich frei entfaltet hat.

Today's conservatives are nothing more than liberals who have been ill-treated by democracy