Quotes About Society

History was what had happened; class was something you read about in a book.

Class was what formed you, but didn't travel to other cultures – it became invisible abroad. In foreign places, you were singled out by religion and race, but not class, which was more indecipherable than any other mother tongue. He'd learnt that not only were light, language, and weather contingent – class was too.

Who is the forgotten man...? I know him as intimately as my own undershirt. He is the fellow that is trying to get along without public relief... In the meantime the taxpayers go on supporting many that would not work if they had jobs.

We have no money to bestow upon a class of people that is not taken from the whole people," he continued; the individual was going to lose out to the group.

As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine…what A, B, and C shall do for X." But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause. C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, "the man who never is thought of.

Today we have a temporary aberration called "industrial capitalism" which is inadvertently liquidating its two most important sources of capital... the natural world and properly functioning societies. No sensible capitalist would do that.

A government for protecting the coarser interests of the body, business and bread only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption to decay.

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.

Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.

Anger at injustice is a hallmark of the prophets. We have the responsibility to speak the truth. If we don't witness to the crudeness and brutality of our society, which disregards the homeless, poor, hungry, and dispossessed, who will?

Amelia said, "I think women—some women—regard matrimony as a highly honorable retreat from the possibility of failure in the larger world.

And why is Saint Paula a Saint? She dumps her four kids at a convent. She runs off to Hajira with Saint Jerome. How is that a saint? You've got shitty mothers all over America who would love to dump their kids and travel.

So, now I know that not only will the German people stand for it, so will the Americans. It turns out we'll stand for any goddamn thing the government will do on our behalf, and if that includes a boot in the kidneys or taking everything a man has and throwing it on his front lawn for the neighbors to pick through, we're okay with that. We're better than they are, I hear, because we're not exterminating a whole people. Future generations will admire our restraint.

Page 210 Indeed, precisely because American society is so wealthy overall, America has come to occupy the role of a starkly market-dominant minority vis-à-vis the rest of world. We are now the object of intense resentment, even hatred, spurred by globalization.

America's elites today, especially progressive ones, often don't realize how judgmental they are.

America's elites miscalled the 2016 election in part because they don't understand—even look down on—what matters most to America's nonelites.

It's human nature to be curious about people, and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That's just so normal.

And like Mikhail, when he had slid from dance to drugs to the streets at the age of fifteen, she had lived and breathed a profession in which it was better to be high than even a pound above the minimum weight to sustain life.

the primary sources of moral decay in this country are the theaters, the dance halls, and the saloons.

time has come when an honest man can't take an honest drink without having a gang of revenue officers after him.

It's much safer, in many congregations, to assure the faithful how our souls are saved through divine grace rather than to suggest that our societies are saved through personal and corporate aid to the poor.

M]embers of society with something of value to contribute neither seek nor want political office; only the bramble, which has nothing to offer, accepts the job, and he does so with a threat that he will destroy those who oppose him.

Some women think that successful lies in mariage and making children

The Fool card represented one who walked without fear, aware of the choices she made in the journey of life, life itself being defined as a state of courage and wisdom and not an uncontrollable participation in society, as many people experienced their lives.