Quotes About Societies

Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

there is virtually no credible social science evidence to support the idea that violence in societies can be effectively addressed in the absence of the state exercising its monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force through law enforcement.

The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies especially

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Climate change brings pressures that will influence resource competition between nations and place additional burdens on economies, societies and governance institutions around the globe. These effects are threat multipliers.

Because of cyberattacks and fake news, we can already imagine the problem all democratic societies will face in future elections: how to limit lies when they threaten democracy?

Throughout history, when societies have been faced with big challenges, they've put their best people on them. During the Space Race, American and Russian scientists, engineers, astronauts and cosmonauts pushed the bounds of what was possible and landed men on the moon.

The Costa Rican government is prioritizing laying fiber optic over paving roads. Costa Rica is trying to become one of the Internet societies. This is happening throughout the world.

I was 21 in 1968, so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968.

Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.

States define threats in terms of the intentions of the other states, and those intentions and how they are perceived are powerfully shaped by cultural consideration. They are much more likely to see threats coming from states whose societies have different cultures and hence which they do not understand and feel can not trust.

political and economic development among civilizations are clearly rooted in their different cultures. East Asian economic success has its source in East Asian culture, as do the difficulties East Asian societies have had in achieving stable democratic political systems. Islamic

Rich, modern countries have common traits that make them different from poor, traditional countries, which also share common traits. Differences in wealth can lead to conflict between societies, but the evidence suggests that this mainly occurs when rich and powerful societies try to conquer and colonize poor and traditional societies.

reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies.

Time is found in the calibration of the individual to the timing of a collective endeavour, the social grace that less clock-bound societies must practise.

Conquest, tyranny, treachery, and the clash of cultures bring about corrupt societies, and so does old age. Sometimes the five faces of corruption are visible at the same time.

Ce voyage-là durait vingt-quatre jours. Les paquebots des lignes étaient déjà des villes avec des rues, des bars, des cafés, des bibliothèques, des salons, des rencontres, des amants, des mariages, des morts. Des sociétés de hasard se formaient, elles étaient obligées, on le savait, on ne l'oubliait pas, et de ce fait elles devenaient vivables, et même parfois inoubliables d'agrément.

For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: Can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different worldview.

Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.

Indeed, recent writing suggests that episcopal attempts to quash national parishes, schools, and societies only strengthened national identities by creating a sense of shared victimization.

Along the way I kept running across wonderful bits of information about the women - virtually always women - who produced these textiles and about the values that different societies put on the products and their makers. When I talked about my work, people seemed especially eager for these vignettes, stories that told of women's lives thousands of years ago.

An inexorable law strikes and directs societies and civilizations. When, for lack of vitality, the past collapses, clinging to it serves no purpose - and yet it is this attachment to antiquated forms of life, to lost or bad causes, that makes so touching the anathemas of a de Maistre or a Bonald. Everything seems admirable and everything is false in the Utopian vision; everything is execrable and everything seems true in the observations of the reactionaries.

An inexorable law strikes and directs societies and civilisations. When, for lack of vitality, the past collapses, clinging to it serves no purpose — and yet it is this attachment to antiquated forms of life, to lost or bad causes, that makes so touching the anathemas of a de Maistre or a Bonald. Everything seems admirable and everything is false in the utopian vision; everything is execrable and everything seems true in the observations of the reactionaries.