quotations about society
Without some portion of moral virtues, not even thieves can maintain society.
J. HARRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Society is immoral and immortal; it can afford to commit any kind of folly, and indulge in any sort of vice; it cannot be killed, and the fragments that survive can always laugh at the dead.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.
ERICH FROMM
The Sane Society
It may be that our society is only passing through a period of ugly transition, but the present evil has its root deep down in the social organization, and springs from a diseased public opinion.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
"A Chapter of Erie", North American Review, July 1869
Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Society therefore is as ancient as the world.
VOLTAIRE
A Philosophical Dictionary
Society is a chain of obligations, and its links must support each other;
The branch cannot but wither, that is cut from the parent vine.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Were it not for some small remainders of piety and virtue which are yet left scattered among mankind, human society would in a short space disband and run into confusion, and the earth would grow wild and become a forest.
JOHN TILLOTSON
"The Advantages of Religion to Societies", The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson
Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
EDWIN H. LAND
testimony, The Public Television Act of 1967: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications
The societies to which I have been exposed seemed to me largely machines for the suppression of women.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
Put me to sleep or take me away
I don't want to be a part of this sick society
NASUM
"Escape"
Society is divided into two classes--the shearers and the shorn; we should always be with the former against the latter.
NAPOLEON
attributed, Day's Collacon
A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Coming of Age
Now hear this
This is a warning to the slack society
Release the pressure
Fabulous
Now watch this
Charge
Attack Attack Attack
It's all over
ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION
"Charge"
Society is the theatre, obligatory for the emancipation and development of the creative power in man. To reject social life is to deprive ourselves of the power of profiting by the experience of the past and the present.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one--
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
ROBERT BROWNING
Luria
We are all civilized people, which means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behavior.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
foreword, Sweet Bird of Youth
Society is all around
Aw, hear the beautiful sound
Of all the high-pitched squeals
Ecstatic brilliance at its finest
KURT VILE
"Society Is My Friend"
I may travel, perhaps. So you have got to like society, and would enjoy it, you think? For me, I always hated it--have put up with it these six or seven years past, lest by foregoing it I should let some unknown good escape me, in the true time of it, and only discover my fault when too late; and now that I have done most of what is to be done, any lodge in a garden of cucumbers for me!
ROBERT BROWNING
letter to Elizabeth Barrett, March 12, 1845