Quotes About Societies

Perhaps, indeed, there are no truly universal ethics: or to put it more precisely, the ways in which ethical principles are interpreted will inevitably differ across cultures and eras. Yet, these differences arise chiefly at the margins. All known societies embrace the virtues of truthfulness, integrity, loyalty, fairness; none explicitly endorse falsehood, dishonesty, disloyalty, gross inequity. (Five Minds for the Future, p136)

In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.

LIBERATION IS PERHAPS not the right word to describe the end of the war in colonial societies. Most Asians were more than happy to be rid of the Japanese, whose "Asian liberation" had turned out to be worse than the Western imperialism it temporarily replaced. But liberation is not quite what the Dutch had in mind for the Dutch East Indies in 1945, or the French for Indochina, or the British for Malaya.

You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so. I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all.

War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

Societies that treat women badly are dangerous societies. The empowerment of women is not only morally right it is also practical in the positive impact it has on so many social ills.

Women scholars have conducted research over the past forty years hoping to find evidence of some societies in which women controlled political power. They have not found evidence for any such matriarchies.

For African societies, no issue looms larger than employment. Only vibrant entrepreneurship and thriving small businesses can hope to provide the millions of jobs that are needed.

We know that genes shape human cultures and human societies: The DNA we inherited from our ancestors makes certain foods taste better, affects the way we care for children, influences what colors we find vibrant, and contributes to our love of socializing, among other examples.

The constant effort towards population, which is found even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased.

Our societies have experienced the magic that occurs when pluralism flourishes and the marginalized assume their proper powers. But loss stalks those victories, as millions revolt against change and supremacies resurface.

As hard to believe as it may be for Americans brought up on wartime propaganda films and publications devoted merely to war technology and battles, World War II was largely the result of infighting between secret occult societies composed of wealthy businessmen that eventually led to international tensions that provoked open warfare.

After reporting on such moments, the historian Paul Johnson concludes, "Attempts to perfect Christian societies in this world, whether conducted by popes or revolutionaries, have tended to degenerate into red terrors.

Sudden falls can come to societies that know too little history or that have furnished their minds with easy one-note propaganda in place of the true complexity and terrible beauty of the storied past.

Over the centuries, the Miriams and the Bernies and the millions like them were the fonts of free and civil societies, which was why the likes of D. J. Michael so despised them and yearned to oppress them; freedom and civility were barriers to absolute power and to the adoration that the powerful could command of others.

until delusion becomes mass insanity. Whole societies do go mad.

Corruption is the primary reason societies fail to thrive; societies in which corruption is held in check prosper economically, socially, and morally. Nothing explains the success or failure of countries more than does the presence or absence of corruption.

From its earliest days, the raison d'être of Judaism has been to change the world for the better (in the words of an ancient Jewish prayer recited daily, "to repair the world under the rule of God"). This attempt to change the world, to challenge the gods, religious or secular, of the societies around them, and to make moral demands upon others (even when not done expressly in the name of Judaism) has constantly

If we are aware, if we use the power of choice consciously and conscientiously, we can have an enormous impact on the direction of our societies and our civilization.

Even more so in nonindustrialized cultures than in modern Western societies, music is and was part of the fabric of everyday life.

Free societies, which allow differences to speak and be heard, and live by intermarriage, commerce, and free migration, and democratic societies, which convert enemies into adversaries and reconcile differences without resort to violence, are societies in which the genocidal temptation is unlikely and even inconceivable.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.

Faster roads are not always safer roads - and virtually all societies, democratic or authoritarian, prefer safety over speed, even if many of their citizens enjoy fast driving.