Quotes About Society

In a period when Tom was anxious about whether he could keep his job at the hospital or would have to go on relief, he exclaimed, "If I could not support my family, I'd as soon jump off the dock." That is, if the value of being a self-respecting wage-earner were threatened, Tom, like the salesman Willie Loman and countless other men in our society, would feel he no longer existed as a self, and might as well be dead.

In our particular world in which conformity is the great destroyer of selfhood—in our society in which fitting the "pattern" tends to be accepted as the norm, and being "well liked" is the alleged ticket to salvation—what needs to be emphasized is not only the admitted fact that we are to some extent created by each other but also our capacity to experience, and create, ourselves.

When a culture is caught in the profound convulsions of a transitional period, the individuals in the society understandably suffer spiritual and emotional upheaval; and finding that the accepted mores and ways of thought no longer yield security, they tend to sink into dogmatism and conformism, giving up awareness, or are forced to strive for a heightened self-consciousness by which to become aware of their existence with new conviction and on new bases.

Tinin yarat?c?l??? ussal, düzenli toplum ve ya?ama tarz?m?z?n yap?s?n? ve önkabulleni?lerini tehdit eder ve etmelidir. Bilinçd???, usd??? itilimler tam da do?alar?ndan ötürü ussall???m?za yönelik bir tehdit olu?turmak durumundad?rlar, o halde ya?ad???m?z kayg? kaç?n?lmazd?r.

This remark merely illustrates an attitude which runs through our society: so many people judge the value of their actions not on the basis of the action itself, but on the basis of how the action is accepted.

Tom was anxious about whether he could keep his job at the hospital or would have to go on relief, he exclaimed, "If I could not support my family, I'd as soon jump off the dock." That is, if the value of being a self-respecting wage-earner were threatened, Tom, like the salesman Willie Loman and countless other men in our society, would feel he no longer existed as a self, and might as well be dead.

The trouble with hysteria is that it's contagious.

J'ignore ce que c'est une dépression nerveuse, parce que pour moi c'est l'état normal de l'humanité." - Vingt questions à Romain Gary - L'affaire homme

Not that I had any intention of accosting him to propose any practical agreement. That would have demanded on Laura's part a degree of devotion, of understanding, a detached view of the purely animal act of love, such as could not be expected of so young a woman who was so subject conventions of comportment in a society that had always shown itself incapable of differentiating between love and sexuality.

Si dice che la cosa più tremenda del nazismo sia il suo lato disumano. Sì. Ma ci si deve arrendere all'evidenza: questo lato disumano fa parte dell'umano. Fintantoché non si riconoscerà che la disumanità è cosa umana, si resterà in una pietosa bugia.»

Ma i sognatori non erano ben visti; il sogno e la ribellione sono sempre andati a braccetto.

C'est horrible de vivre une époque ou au mot sentiment, on vous répond sentimentalisme. Il faudra bien pourtant qu'un jour vienne où l'affectivité sera reconnue comme le plus grand des sentiments et rejettera l'intellect dominateur.

Madame Rosa voyait que les gens devenaient de plus en plus gentils avec elle et ce n'est jamais bon signe.

Le plus mauvais film américain est toujours véridique, il rend toujours fidèlement compte des États-Unis. Cela

A civilization worthy of that name will always feel guilty toward Man and that is, precisely, what makes it a civilization." Pascal, probably. It's always Pascal with the French, when it's not La Rochefoucauld. Aristocratic bastards.

No one has ever managed to resolve the contradiction there is in wanting to defend something human in the company of men.

But, curiously, membership of the Society was not open to Indians for many years, even though those presenting their findings were being trained by Indian scholars.

The existence of autonomous individuals free to criticize was once a landmark of our civilization.

Religion rarely fights for the equality of all in material life.

Pre-modern Hinduism had its warts—big and small—as do all religions, but its subtleties were richer than what is now being thrust on its believers. Hindutva is in many ways the antithesis of Hinduism, and aims to create a society that is narrow, bigoted and inward looking, in which the co-existence with those that differ, such as the minority communities of various kinds, is becoming increasingly impossible, as demonstrated by the frequency of communal riots.

The Gita, for example, speaks of shudras, vaishyas and women as one category, all being papa-yoni, born of sinful wombs.

In contemporary times we not only reconstruct the past but we also use it to give legitimacy to the way in which we order our own society.

A society has many pasts from which it chooses those that go into the creation of its history. The choice is made by those in authority—the authority being of various kinds—although occasionally the voice of others may be heard.

The third aspect was that Hindu society has always been divided into four main castes—the varnas.