Quotes About Society

To deprive the bourgeoisie not of its art but of its concept of art, this is the precondition of a revolutionary argument.

Imagine a society entirely absorbed in its own historicity. It would be incapable of producing historians. Living entirely under the sign of the future, it would satisfy itself with automatic self-recording processes and auto-inventory machines, postponing indefinitely the task of understanding itself

Le journalisme doit remplir deux fonctions : organiser l'espace public mais aussi produire des révélations. Révéler d'abord au sens de tendre un miroir à la société, pour qu'elle prenne conscience de ce qu'elle est véritablement.

Today, it seems as though inequality is implicitly tolerated,

there is a global rejection of society as it presently exists together with acceptance of the mechanisms that produce that society. De facto inequalities are rejected, but the mechanisms that generate inequality in general are implicitly recognized.

Equality has become a sort of remote deity, which is routinely worshipped but has ceased to inspire any living faith.

in the American and French Revolutions. Equality was then understood primarily as a relation, as a way of making a society, of producing and living in common.

The world changes materially. Science makes advances in technology and understanding. But the world of humanity doesn't change.

An empty stomach knows no morality.

When politics and home life have become one and the same, when economic problems have been solved in such a way that individual and collective interests are identical – all constraints having disappeared – it is evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

Laws! We know what they are, and what they are worth! Spider webs for the rich and powerful, steel chains for the weak and poor, fishing nets in the hands of the government.

To-day, the man who pays taxes to the amount of two hundred francs is virtuous; the talented man is the honest pickpocket: such truths as these are accounted trivial.

Property and society are completely irreconcilable with one another. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property.

The civilised labourer who gives his best effort for a bit of bread, who builds a palace and sleeps in a stable, who weaves rich fabrics and dresses in rags, and who produces everything and does without everything, is not free.

In a society like ours, to seek for literary glory seems to me an anachronism. Of what use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth? Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer aspire to this sad success!

Property and royalty have been crumbling ever since the beginning of the world. As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

Society was saved by the negation of its own principles, by a revolution in its religion, and by violation of its most sacred rights. In this revolution, the idea of justice spread to an extent that had not before been dreamed of, never to return to its original limits. Heretofore justice had existed only for the masters; it then commenced to exist for the slaves.

La démagogie est l'hypocrisie du progrès.

L'homme est né sociable, c'est-à-dire qu'il cherche dans toutes ses relations l'égalité et la justice ; mais il aime l'indépendance et l'éloge : la difficulté de satisfaire en même temps à ces besoins divers est la première cause du despotisme de la volonté et de l'appropriation qui en est la suite.

Liberty is the original condition of man; to renounce liberty is to renounce the nature of man: after that, how could we perform the acts of man?

The emancipation of the working class can only be achieved by the working class itself — without the assistance of governments.

Decent folk had to let indecent folk do their thing; that was the paradox of decency.

We must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its disposal.