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Quotes About Society

Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor?
~ Emma Goldman
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man.
~ Emma Goldman
Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America.
~ Emma Goldman
If society were only relieved of the waste and expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual.
~ Emma Goldman
We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must guard against the tendency to fetter the future.
~ Emma Goldman
Suurin osa ihmisistä on pakotettu tekemään asioita joita he vihaavat sekä elämään elämää jota halveksivat. Niin kauan kuin tällainen jatkuu, rikollisuus on välttämätön paha.
~ Emma Goldman
We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must guard against the tendency to fetter the future. If we succeed in clearing the soil from the rubbish of the past and present, we will leave to posterity the greatest and safest heritage of all ages.
~ Emma Goldman
How is the ordinary man to know that the most violent element in society is ignorance
~ Emma Goldman
I believed in God; but when I saw so great an inequality between men, I acknowledged that it was not God who created man, but man who created God.
~ Emma Goldman
But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution?
~ Emma Goldman
Anarchism, more than any other social theory, values human life above things. All Anarchists agree with Tolstoy in this fundamental truth: if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life. That, however, nowise indicates that Anarchism teaches submission. How can it, when it knows that all suffering, all misery, all ills, result from the evil of submission?
~ Emma Goldman
In comic books, people with gifts became superheroes; in real life they became outcasts.
~ Eoin Colfer
Sometimes Spiro missed the times when a troublesome worker was thrown out of a high window and that was the end of him. These days, if you threw someone out of a window, they'd phone their lawyer on the way down.
~ Eoin Colfer
For in this Case, we are not to give Credit to the Many, who say, that none ought to be educated but the Free; but rather to the Philosophers, who say, that the Well-educated alone are free.
~ Epictetus
Finally, when he crowns it off by becoming a senator, then he becomes a slave in fine company, then he experiences the poshest and most prestigious form of enslavement.
~ Epictetus
We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one's character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself.
~ Epictetus
Avoid banquets which are given by strangers and by ignorant persons.
~ Epictetus
of all things, the greatest, and most important, and most all-embracing, is this society in which human beings and God are associated together. From this are derived the generative forces to which not only my father and grandfather owe their origin, but also all beings that are born and grow on the earth, and especially rational beings, [5] since they alone are fitted by nature to enter into communion with the divine, being bound to God through reason.
~ Epictetus
Because when you engage in the same things as the masses, you lower yourself to their level.
~ Epictetus
What is my position in society?" The one best suited to your talents, which you can hold with honor. Each person has a vital role in society; you are important right where you are. But if you lose your honor in striving for greater (perceived) significance, you become useless.
~ Epictetus
Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weakness.
~ Epictetus
By firm immutable immortal laws Impress'd on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE, Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife Organic forms, and kindled into life; How Love and Sympathy with potent charm Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm; Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains, And bind Society in golden chains.
~ Erasmus Darwin
Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.
~ Eric Bogosian
Jeff: Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.
~ Eric Bogosian