Quotes About Society

What is needed in our nation is a renewed respect for the noncompetitive, more cooperative parts of our society that the competitive, for-profit parts rely upon. Rather than trying to "marketize" everything, we should realize and teach that for-profit markets and capitalism itself rest on our willingness to do certain things without immediate individual benefit.

If you look at the way society and our nation have progressed, a simple rule is that they have progressed by converting private responsibilities to public responsibilities.

Individual humans cannot factor into the goals of a great society." "And societies are only great when they care about individuals

Regulation of sexual behavior is the preferred route to wider social control.

if you observe the social structure of the people, you only see springs of the machine, but not also the noble hand which moves it.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

At this time of day it should have been open and full of fifty fellow smackheads, crackheads, psychotics, epileptics, schizophrenics, self-harmers, beggars, buskers, car thieves, sherry pushers, ciderheads, just-released-that-morning convicts, ex-army, ex-married-men-with-young-children-who'd-discovered-their-wife-in-bed-with-two-members-of-the-university-rowing-team-at-the-same-time.

Homelessness–it's not about not having a home. It's about something being seriously fucking wrong.

Everybody expected everything for nothing not realising that he had bills to pay.

Women, as usual, were expected to behave better than men, and inevitably attracted criticism for doing things that men were licensed to do with impunity.

Anthropology, she thought, like charity, surely begins at home.

It was easy, terribly easy, to become with time a middle-aged spinster with a sharp tongue. She would have to guard against this.

So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, men who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotwe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere - in France, perhaps - but they did not seem to be much in evidence in Botswana.

Everybody in a village had a role to play in bringing up a child—and cherishing it—and in return that child would in due course feel responsible for everybody in that village. That is what makes life in society possible. We must love one another and help one another in our daily lives. That was the traditional African way and there was no substitute for it. None.

Mma Makutsi pondered this. Why are there fewer and fewer gentlemen, Mma Ramotswe? It is our fault, Mma. It is the fault of ladies. Why is that? Because we have allowed men to stop behaving as gentlemen, and when you allow people to do what they wish, then that is what they do. They stop doing the things they need to do. She looked at Mma Makutsi across the steering wheel. That is well known, I think, Mma. That is well known.

this was a consequence of increasing prosperity, which, curiously enough, just seemed to bring out greed and selfishness.

And he thought for a moment how stupid our society had become, that its nanny-like concern for risk should prevent one man helping another to take a dead friend up the steps

Like ageism and sexism, lookism was everywhere, resulting in the good-looking getting the best jobs, winning all the plaudits, being let off the most parking tickets by soft-hearted traffic wardens; being generally favoured.

It was all very well being a modern society, but the advent of prosperity and the growth of the towns was a poisoned cup from which one should drink with the greatest caution. One might have all the things which the modern world offered, but what was the use of these if they destroyed all that which gave you strength and courage and pride in yourself and your country?

We do not talk about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people—actors and the like—who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects.

That was the way the world was; it was composed of a few almost perfect people (ourselves); then there were a good many people who generally did their best but were not all that perfect (our friends and colleagues); and finally, there were a few rather nasty ones (our enemies and opponents).

that was enough to make her blush with shame for the mere fact that Las Vegas existed. There

Are we facing a new Dark Age, Angus? Possibly, Lou. A dark age in which our concentration spell is this long.

Yes, but not in chairs that don't belong to us," countered Mma Makutsi. "That's the trouble with this country, Mma—there are too many people sitting down in other people's chairs.