Enlightened Society Quotes

To create an enlightened society, be a beacon of light ~ Debasish Mridha

The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society. ~ Pema Chodron

An enlightened society is one where all people - the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the black and the white, men and women - live happily as children of the same Lord. Thus experiencing the brotherhood of men under the fatherhood of God. ~ Pandurang Shastri Athavale

The great tragedy is that they're removing art completely, not because they're putting more science in, but because they can't afford the art teachers or because somebody thinks it's not useful. An enlightened society has all of this going on within it. It's part of what distinguishes what it is to be human from other life forms on Earth - that we have culture ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The influence of woman is the same everywhere. Her condition influences the morals, manners, and character of the people of all countries. Where she is debased, society is debased; where she is morally pure and enlightened, society will be proportionately elevated. ~ Samuel Smiles

NOT CAUSING HARM obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes not being aggressive - not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds. Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression. Not harming ourselves or others in the beginning, not harming ourselves or others in the middle, and not harming ourselves or others in the end is the basis of enlightened society. ~ Pema Chodron

Western societies from ancient Athens to imperial Rome to the French republic rarely collapsed because of a shortage of resources or because foreign enemies proved too numerous or formidable in arms - even when those enemies were grim Macedonians or Germans. Rather, in times of peace and prosperity there arose an unreal view of the world beyond their borders, one that was the product of insularity brought about by success, and an intellectual arrogance that for some can be the unfortunate byproduct of an enlightened society. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

If I were just in trousers, somehow I could go out into the world. It would make no difference whether I was naked from the waist up and my feet bare just as long as I had trousers on. Otherwise if you go walking around the streets without trousers, no matter how new your shoes and how elegant your coat, it's enough to raise a big hue and cry. Enlightened society is a kind of trouser society. ~ Kobo Abe

This could never be a crime in any society which deems himself enlightened. ~ Jack Kevorkian

What's more, the kaleidoscopic blend of gender-variant and gender-typical traits that characterizes gay people is exactly what enables us to make our own unique contributions to society. It's the reason that we should be valued, celebrated, and welcomed into society rather than merely being tolerated. The aim should be to foster acceptance of gay people as we are, in all our rich diversity and not to seek acceptance by shoe-horning ourselves into conformity with the straight majority. ~ Simon LeVay

Education is the way to achieve far-reaching results, it is the proper way to promote compassion and tolerance in society. ~ Dalai Lama

We use pandas and eagles and things. I'd love to see a wilderness society with an angry-looking wolverine as their logo. ~ E. O. Wilson

The Roman Empire invented snacks, right after the aqueducts. Irrigation flowed, food plentiful, people munching between meals in the city-states. They ate these little, sun-dried meaty things, highly distasteful and falling out of favor until olive oil. I just made all that up. The key to life is making shit up. Everyone does it or society would unravel, like, Gee, your hair looks great! Or: God told me you're wrong ~ Tim Dorsey

Thus, anybody who follows this nature and gives way its states will be led into quarrels and conflicts, and go against the conventions and rules of society, and will end up a criminal. ~ Xun Zi

Our beliefs about ourselves in relation to the world around us are the roots of our values, and our values determine not only our immediate actions, but also, over the course of time, the form of our society. Our beliefs are increasingly determined by science. Hence it is at least conceivable that what science has been telling us for three hundred years about man and his place in nature could be playing by now an important role in our lives. ~ Henry Stapp

When our laws tell people that what lies behind the thin wall of a women's abdomen during pregnancy is not a human being and that the destiny of a preborn child lies with the private conscience of the mother, we are essentially telling society that life itself is not important enough to be called an inalienable right. If life itself is not the most fundamental of all rights, then what is? ~ Bob Dornan

Sometimes I look at where we've come to, and how much technology and advancement there is, and I can't believe that we're not this perfectly balanced, beautiful, peaceful society. I'm shocked that we're so deeply polarized, that there are people who want progress and they feel guilty for wanting progress, because it somehow seems un-American, because being American means staying ignorant and going backward. ~ Rashida Jones

Don't accumulate if you do not need. The excess of wealth in your hands is for the society, and you are the trustee for the same. ~ Mahavira

True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We've somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Genuine scientific progress is a slow climb, which requires a stable society to support thinkers and theorists over many generations. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

Killing him at this point would be justifiable homicide. A slap on the wrist at most. Maybe even a medal for doing society a favor. ~ Karen Akins

Aging in women is 'unbeautiful' since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be broken. ~ Naomi Wolf

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem isn't with rock lyrics, it's
with the fabric of this society itself. ~ Jodi Picoult

Society remains unflagging in its almost pathological pursuit of material self-interest. ~ William Marsden

The British system denied any role for human creativity, and instead argued, that if man merely followed his hedonistic desires, pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, objective laws would naturally guide society to achieve the best allocation of wealth. ~ Robert Trout

Man is certainly not creative, but his creativity should not be concerned with God. His creativity should be concerned with making a better world, a better society, better literature, better poetry, better paintings, better sculpture, better human beings. ~ Rajneesh

He quickly observed, that good sentences and excellent representations of the follies of mankind met with little regard or applause, whilst sounds, without sense, threw every body into raptures: - - but 'twas the fashion of the day to be musically mad, and those who were absurd enough to prefer a rational entertainment to a flimsy opera, were poor insipid beings, without taste or enthusiasm. ~ Eliza Parsons

Love is not coercion, and the state is only an agent of coercion. It has no other function and can work no other way. Its job is to be the last resort in society: the coercion of criminals through punishment. Its nature and its funding are coercion. Any solution it offers will inescapably be coercive. When we make it the primary agent of healing, we fundamentally alter the nature of society. We ought to have a society in which the power of love drives us to break down all social, class, and political barriers, and to effect healing through private means, private associations, private institutions, counselors, networks, schools, hospitals, charities, businesses, etc. It ought to be driven by giving. Love is giving; selfishness is taking. When we make the state the mover, we make the primary solution one of taking rather than giving. This inverts God's designed order for all human relations, including race relations and racial healing. ~ Joel McDurmon

Why did people circle one another, consumed with either fear or envy, when all the they were fearing or envying was illusion? Why did they build psychological fortresses and barriers around themselves that would take a Ph.D. in safe-cracking to get through, which even they could not penetrate from the inside? And once again I compared European society with Aboriginal. The one so archetypally paranoid, grasping, destructive, the other so sane. I didn't want ever to leave this desert. I knew that I would forget. ~ Robyn Davidson

Is it not good to make society full of beautiful people? - Yang Yuan, quoted in the New York Times ~ Scott Westerfeld

... what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names - otherwise you would be selling nothing - like "Structured Analysis and Design", "Software Engineering", "Maturity Models", "Management Information Systems", "Integrated Project Support Environments" "Object Orientation" and "Business Process Re-engineering". ~ Edsger Dijkstra

The Constitution, as originally drawn, made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society. ~ Constance Baker Motley

[T]he ideals and desires of the majority define the structure of society as it is; a would-be mass movement that pursues a different path will reliably find itself failing to attract members, while a mass movement that reshapes its message to attract a large audience will inevitably turn into a mechanism for replicating the existing order of things. ~ John Michael Greer

If there is but one criterion of morals, but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny, according to the vulgar tale of Mahomet's coffin; they have neither the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of reason on a perfect model. They were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

Western societies want men to be upstanding, proactive citizens who take responsibility for themselves, who work with others to improve their communities and nation as a whole. The irony is that society is not giving the support, guidance, means, or places for these young men even to be motivated or interested in aspiring to these goals. In fact, society - from politics to the media to the classroom to our very own families - is a major contributor to this demise because it is inhibiting young men's intellectual, creative, and social abilities right from the start. And the irony is only compounded by the fact that men play such a powerful part in society, which means they are effectively denying their younger counterparts the opportunity to thrive. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

The authors we classified as villains, detractors, and bad role models for our children are part of the educational curriculum. Freethinkers and the gutsy ones who pursued love and went against what society preordained are those we admire. The talented that wrote about these adventurous escapades and secret interludes are part of our literary tradition. ~ Julia Ann Charpentier

Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My writing, I am prepared to think, may be a substitute for something I have been born without - a so-called normal relation to society. My books are my relation to society. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

The telephone is a great knee-jerk machine, but if you really want to tell someone how you feel, you need the slowness of the letter. In a society where everything is fast, it's like going out in the country and looking up at the stars. ~ Nick Bantock

On the other hand, in a society whose communication component is becoming more prominent day by day, both as a reality and as an issue, it is clear that language assumes a new importance. ~ Jean Francois Lyotard

I met many Christians leaving the Middle East, hoping to come to Australia feeling they would leave behind a society where they were inferiors in their native lands and they are disturbed about the rise of more separate radical Islam in Australia, not necessarily the main stream but there is a voice. ~ Mark Durie

Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative: liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors its worst members. ~ James O'Toole

You can't have a cohesive society without a shared culture. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry's rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public's right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people's health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children's futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. ~ Lois Gibbs

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society. ~ Luc De Clapiers

Science and religion ... are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there's a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don't agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if people in this so-called 'scientific age' knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they'd find it easier to share my views. ~ John Polkinghorne

Much of my adult life has been spent fighting for equal opportunity, and the idea that I would support limiting opportunity for any segment of society, particularly women, is antithetical to who I am and what I have done. ~ Paul Tudor Jones

A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where everyone can be themselves. ~ Gloria Steinem

Any society contains propaganda, but it is important to distinguish this from art and to preserve the purity and independence of the practice of art. A good society contains many different artists doing many different things. A bad society coerces artists because it knows that they can reveal all kinds of truths. ~ Iris Murdoch

Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It's just that it's incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed. ~ Vaclav Havel

Men are born privileged in the scale of things - I'm generalizing, but it's true. Women have to define themselves in the eyes of men. They have to fight for their rights, especially in a society that will pretend that there is no fight or no battle, that it's a cliche, that feminists are reactionary, all these things. ~ Xavier Dolan

In school we learn that one of the best survival strategies is being part of a clique . With our friends, we create a little, tiny world with codes for conduct, morality, dress, communication, ethnicity and sexuality. We then learn to judge everyone else who is not part of our little world by the standards that are acceptable to us. This is called "divide and conquer," and happens to be exactly how male, white patriarchal society operates. When you choose not to see how you, yourself, perpetuate this social model, your world assuredly becomes-or remains-small, "safe," persnickety, judgmental and uninspiring. ~ Inga Muscio