Quotes About Societies

Persecution is only an attempt to do that overtly and with violence, which the community is, in self-defense, perpetually doing unconsciously and in silence. In many societies variation of belief is practically impossible. In other societies it is permitted only along certain definite lines. In no society that has ever existed, or could be conceived as existing, are opinions equally free (in the scientific sense of the term, not the legal) to develop themselves indifferently in all directions.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of the state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

It was only with the rise of capitalism and the need for workers to be freer, more mobile, and prosperous, that societies were able to undermine pagan morality and the ancient institution of slavery.

Many people crave security and stability rather than risk-taking, and that doesn't make them any less American. They are the workers rather than the job creators, and all societies need both.

Institutionalized discrimination is bad for people and for societies. Widespread discrimination is also bad for economies. There is clear evidence that when societies enact laws that prevent productive people from fully participating in the workforce, economies suffer.

For nations and societies, the 'good' or benefit of technology is often expressed in economic terms, in measures such as workplace productivity and business growth.

A 'human right' is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times.

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.

I had to read up on the Freemasons, about secret societies, and dip my toe into art history.

What do women do when they get together? We sit around and talk! Men, not so much. My theory is that this difference is genetic and dates back to the hunter-gatherer societies, when the men had to be quiet as they hunted, lest they scare away the bison and then everyone starved to death and it was all their fault.

Once you get to the Enlightenment, the way that powers get to be hyperpowers isn't just by conquest. It's through commerce and innovation. Societies like the Dutch Republic and the United States used tolerance to become a magnet for enterprising immigrants.

Secular societies establish tolerance by being equally non-accommodating toward all religious demands within the public sphere.

Southeast Asia is an area in which there is a form of Islam which is both devout and progressive, and therefore to be supported. It's an area in which I see a congruence of American interests and local interests: to have tolerant societies and become more prosperous.

In theocratic societies, adherence to fundamentalism may enhance the fitness of fundamentalists, as opposed to nonfundamentalists, because fundamentalists are more likely to obtain productive resources and have successful offspring, whereas nonfundamentalists are less likely to have access to productive resources and more likely to be punished or killed. It is not likely, however, that natural selection has had the time to cause the difference. Conversely

The numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.

Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.

For the fragmented man creates the homogenized Western world, while oral societies are made up of people differentiated, not by their specialist skills or visible marks, but by their unique emotional mixes.

The Communist Manifesto (like anarchism, the rival ideology at the time) requires of its adherents a great deal of blind faith. In this, it's more of a religious doctrine than a scientific theory. For this reason, it's not surprising that the words of the Manifesto actually took root among the pre-industrial societies of Africa, China, South America and Russia – among the 'rural idiots', as Marx and Engels used to refer to people who worked on the land.

André Aciman's letter reflected a widespread concern that, even though the first decade of the Twenty–First Century was closing with a search for reconciliation and understanding between Christian and Muslim societies, Jews who had lived in Muslim lands would not be remembered, nor their hopes for justice upheld.

Never before in history had societies thought that such a set of high expectations about marriage was either realistic or desirable. Although many Europeans and Americans found tremendous joy in building their relationships around these values, the adoption of these unprecedented goals for marriage had unanticipated and revolutionary consequences that have since come to threaten the stability of the entire institution.

The United States fought Germany and Japan, racist societies, with a segregated army.

We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now, to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change.

It was no surprise that upper-class and upper-middle-class young men thronged the recruitment halls. They had been primed for war on the playing fields, in their self-regulated peer societies, through the ethos of muscular Christianity.

As government, and strong rods for the exercise of it, are necessary to preserve public societies from dreadful and fatal calamities arising from among themselves; so no less requisite are they to defend the community from foreign enemies. As they are like the pillars of a building, so they are also like the walls and bulwarks of a city: they are under God the main strength of a people in a time of war and the chief instruments of their preservation, safety and rest.