Society Quotes

It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Stereotype threat, then, is one way our national history seeps into our daily lives. That history leaves us with stereotypes about groups in our society that can be used to judge us as individuals when we're in situations where those stereotypes apply - in the seat next to a black person on an airplane or interacting with minority students, for example. The white person in that situation will not want to be seen in terms of the stereotype of whites as racially insensitive. And the black person, for his or her part, will not want to be seen in terms of the stereotypes about blacks as aggressive, or as too easily seeing prejudice, and so on. Fighting off these possible perceptions on a long airline flight - or more famously, perhaps, in a school cafeteria - could be more than either party wants to take on. They just want to have lunch or get to Cleveland. Avoidance becomes the simplest solution. ~ Claude M. Steele

Maybe I should have killed four, five hundred people. Then I would have felt better. Then I would have felt like I really offered society something. ~ Charles Manson

The United States Constitution turned 225 years old in 2012. It is the central document of American history and politics. From all sides of the political spectrum, from ranks of society low and high, it is ceaselessly venerated, admired, and invoked. But all too seldom is it read. It sometimes seems that Americans worship the Constitution so deeply that they find its actual text a distraction. ~ Garrett Epps

Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it. ~ Emile M. Cioran

The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man
that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times
whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays
I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy! ~ Thomas Hardy

I'd say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back over the books from Carrie on up, what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life as it's lived at the time that particular book was written. In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts. ~ Stephen King

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE) ~ Plato

Democracy is a continuous, open process of civility.
A democracy can never be "done"; updating democracy can never be over.

Democracy can be nothing else but a continuous process, because we use it to organize our life, and life is nothing but a continuous process.

Democracy can be compared to an operating system or an anti-virus software; if it does not get perpetually updated, it becomes obsolete very fast.

Trusting the updates or the "improvements" of democracy to the elected and the owned mass media is like trusting the updates of an anti-virus program to virus creators; it defeats the purpose of updates or improvements. ~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times. ~ Albert Einstein

In the state of nature ... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

Ours has been an expansionist society, but that narrative must change as we run out of places to expand into. But our culture is like a cart stuck in the same old rut that has been leading us in one direction. The longer we've been using a path, the deeper the ruts get, the harder it is to escape them. We've been moving ever Westward, but there's only so far we can go in that direction before we fall into the ocean. It's a direction that we cannot continue on forever, but the breaking of those ruts will require a major rupture. The old narrative is dying, and it will be quite a crushing of gears before things are re-adjusted. A shared story is needed for a civilization to endure. ~ James Rozoff

Society is a partnership of the dead, the living and the unborn. ~ Edmund Burke

A clear stream, a long horizon, a forest wilderness and open sky - these are man's most ancient possessions. In a modern society, they are his most priceless. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

In modern society most of us don't want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book - we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In society just as in the soul,
when hierarchies abdicate the appetites rule. ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila

Practically everyone now bemoans Western man's sense of alienation, lack of community, and inability to find ways of organizing society for human ends. We have reached the end of the road that is built on the set of traits held out for male identity-advance at any cost, pay any price, drive out all competitors, and kill them if necessary. ~ Jean Baker Miller

Music moves society more than most people realize. In my opinion, it's a soft manipulator of influence and change. ~ Kim Harrison

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means. ~ Albert Camus

I believe in most men there is a certain amount of violence. Every man has a bit of fight in him, but some of them have to look deeper within themselves, further than most. The fight is there if you search for it; people don't think they've got it at all, but they have got it, like the weakest fucking crony you could see on earth. If someone broke in to the house, I believe he'd fucking have a go rather than somebody hurt his wife and kids; it would press him to his limits. If he's not going to defend his pitch, he's not worth a cup of cold fucking water. ~ Stephen Richards

In an ageing society, it makes sense to support older adults to develop new skills, prolonging their working lives. ~ David Blunkett

America's a very traumatized society. ~ Alanis Morissette

The best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted in a characteristically pungent remark, that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness. Love and work enable each of us to explore a small corner of the world and to come to accept it on its own terms. But our society tends either to devalue small comforts or else to expect too much of them. Our standards of "creative, meaningful work" are too exalted to survive disappointment. Our ideal of "true romance" puts an impossible burden on personal relationships. We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves. ~ Christopher Lasch

Law is good, proper, and essential in its place, but law can save no man, nor can law remake man and society. ~ Rousas John Rushdoony

Being born as an Indigo, the most difficult mission is to be strong enough to retain your true "self" while living in human stereotype society. Having to pretend, to act "the same as others," can only make you so deeply unhappy and hurt - feeling as though your "wings" have been cut off. ~ Sahara Sanders

Dan had some questions about Chris-R. We all did. Why the name "Chris-R," for instance? What's with that hyphen? Tommy's explanation: "He is gangster." What about this drug business, which never comes up either before or after Chris-R's only scene in the film? "We have big problem in society with the drugs. ~ Greg Sestero

Seventh letter : Life's simplest pleasures are life's greatest joys

Most people dont discover whats most important in life untill they are too old to do anything about it. They spend many of their best years pursuing things that matter little in the end. While society invites us to fill our with material objects, the best part of us knows that the more basic pleasures are the ones that enriches and sustain us. No matter how easy or hard our conditions, we all have wealth of simple blessings around us - waiting to be continued. As we do our happiness grows. Our gratitude expands. And each day becomes a breathtaking gift. ~ Robin S. Sharma

The character at the center of Whyte's wonderful psychodrama was 'the well-rounded man.' The well-rounded man was the ideal 1950s type. Whyte wrote his book in part as an argument against the well-rounded man. He believed that when society exalted the well-rounded it punished the truly talented: the scientists, the artists, the musicians, the engineers, the people who came at life from surprising new directions. ~ Michael Lewis

Social science affirms that a woman's place in society marks the level of civilization. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the form of "human material," the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way. ~ Walter Benjamin

I've come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that. ~ John Tanton

There's nothing more unattractive than a man who blames predestination for his own failures and a woman who blames men for her own vulnerability ...
Blame thyself ~ Sanhita Baruah

Education is at present concerned with outward efficiency, and it utterly disregards, or deliberately perverts, the inward nature of man; it develops only one part of him and leaves the rest to drag along as best it can.

Our inner confusion, antagonism and fear ever overcome the outer structure of society, however nobly conceived and cunningly built. When there is not the right kind of education we destroy one another, and physical security for every individual is denied.

To educate the student rightly is to help him to understand the total process of himself; for it is only when there is integration of the mind and heart in everyday action that there can be intelligence and inward transformation.

While offering information and technical training, education should above all encourage an integrated outlook on life; it should help the student to recognize and break down in himself all social distinctions and prejudices, and discourage the acquisitive pursuit of power and domination. It should encourage the right kind of self-observation and the experiencing of life as a whole, which is not to give significance to the part, to the "me" and the "mine", but to help the mind to go above and beyond itself to discover the real.

Freedom comes into being only through self-knowledge in one's daily occupations, that is, in one's relationship with people, with things, with ideas and with nature. If the educator is helping the student to be integ ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is not the dignitaries who are the real cause of hope, however. What is an enormously refreshing and hopeful sign is to see the young people who make up the membership of the Federalist Society. Earnest, intelligent, and unpretentious, these are the young men and women of whom any nation and any age could be proud. ~ Thomas Sowell

Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor ... The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative. ~ John Shelby Spong

Interethnic and spiritual accord is our strategic resource, the basis for progress of our society and state. ~ Nursultan Nazarbayev

Protect everything, detect everything, contain everything - obsessional society. Save time. Save money. Save our souls - phobic society. Low tar. Low energy. Low calories. Low sex. Low speed - anorexic society. ~ Jean Baudrillard

Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, bur raise it to that standard. That great, defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even though our society is increasingly pluralistic, we must ensure an equal playing field rather than a religiously cleansed arena where people of faith are no longer welcome. ~ Jay Sekulow

On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilised life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two." The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Everything is to him a model - of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. "For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship with others. ~ Samuel Smiles

I tend to look at potential investments from the standpoint of whether it is a valuable contribution to society. ~ David Cheriton

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion. ~ Joseph Brodsky

The society of organizations is new-only seventy years ago employees were a small minority in every society. ~ Peter Drucker

This is a trust that you just cannot find in modern society for there are no conditions to forge it. ~ Chris Matakas

Wealth, knowledge and trust. They loved each other dearly. They lived together. Once God called them, and said for the betterment of the society you three will have to live separately. They didn't want to go away from each other, but for the betterment of society they accepted God's proposal. They decided to live separately. On their separation party, God said that you three friends can decide the place where you can meet each other easily. Wealth said to his two good friends that they can meet him at the rich person's house. Knowledge said that they can meet him at school, college, temple, mosque, church or books. Trust didn't answer anything. Knowledge and wealth asked him again that where they can meet Trust. Trust said you won't be able to find or meet me again. Once I am gone. I am gone forever, ~ Nisha B. Thakur

A dementia-friendly society is not yet in reach. ~ Meryl Comer

I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son A Personal Matter, I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our personal matter, and society. ~ Kenzaburo Oe

We are shocked by thieves taking pride in their clever touch, prostitutes in their depravity and murderers in their callousness. But it is shocking only because the atmosphere of the circles they move in is restricted, and - what matters most - we are on the outside. But isn't the same thing happening when rich men take pride in their wealth (which is theft), military commanders in their victories (which are murder) and rulers in their power (which is violence)? We do not see them as people who corrupt the concept of life, or good and evil, in order to justify their own situation, but only because the circles of people who share these corrupt concepts are wider, and we belong to them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I think we have a society which is spending more and more of its money on healthcare as a percent of GDP as a percent of a lot of things. I think that's a measure of success. ~ Dean Kamen

The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it. ~ George Orwell

by the late second and first centuries BC, across southern Britain, certain members of society enjoy well-equipped inhumation and cremation burial, the males usually distinguished by swords, the females by mirrors. ~ Barry W. Cunliffe

True social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a society where those who always work never have anything, while those who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth. ~ Emma Goldman

And I wonder how the Society ever caught her that day on the ocean. ~ Ally Condie

If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but fanaticism. ~ Zicheng Hong

The mass depiction of the modern woman as a "beauty" is a contradiction: Where modern women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality, as the myth has it, "beauty" is by definition inert, timeless, and generic. That this hallucination is necessary and deliberate is evident in the way "beauty" so directly contradicts women's real situation. ~ Naomi Wolf

There's some homophobia within black community, but there's some strong homophobia throughout the whole of American society as well, particularly throughout the South to a degree, whether white or black. And since many of us migrated from the South, that could be a strong connection along those lines. ~ Otis Moss III

Societies without a reservoir of people who don't follow the rules lack an important mechanism for societal evolution. Vibrant societies need a dishonest minority; if society makes its dishonest minority too small, it stifles dissent as well as common crime. ~ Bruce Schneier

Double Faced World.....Women of Today...want to be slim sexy,savvy more then ever....their whole world revolves around it...can go to any heights to be that...!!!!!in the process they are losing patience,perseverance,tolerance,what are we heading towards Fashion Industry has become one Giant Dinosaurous....leading all the up to a dysfunctional society... ~ Kaneeka Murari

Society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him; he has become tediously good insome particular but negligent or narrow in the rest; and hypocrisy and vanity are often the disgusting result. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only possibility in the United States for a humane society would be a revolution with Elvis Presley as leader. ~ Phil Ochs

Do not listen to what any society tells you about the body - the body is the metaphor for all experience. A woman's body more than any other. Like language, its beautiful but weaker sister. Look at this poem. This painting. Look at these photographs. The body doesn't lie. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by means of communication of habits of doing, thinking, and feeling from the older to the younger. ~ John Dewey

The Purpose Effect results in a higher calling, where individuals and organizations seek to improve society to benefit all stakeholders. ~ Dan Pontefract

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion. ~ Friedrich Hayek

…it is far too simplistic to claim that the specter of this self-engendering monster pursuing its ends regardless of any human or environmental concern is an ideological abstraction, and to insist that one should never forget that, behind this abstraction, lie real people and natural objects on whose productive capacities and resources capital's circulation is based and on which it feeds like a gigantic parasite. (…) the fate of whole swathes of society and sometimes of whole countries can be decided by the speculative dance of Capital, which pursues its goal of profitability with a blessed indifference to how its movements will affect social reality. Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, (…) its violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals with their "evil" intentions, but is purely "objective", systemic, anonymous - quite literally a conceptual violence, the violence of a Concept whose self-deployment rules and regulates social reality. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Sadly, our culture raises man to be strong and silent. Straight or gay, the pressure is on from the time we're very young to become our culture's John Wayne-style of man.
* The more pain I can take, the more of a man I am.
* Showing feelings is for women.
* The more I can drink, the manlier I am.
* Intimacy is sex; sex is intimacy.
* Only women depend on others.
* A man takes care of himself without help from others.
* No one can hurt you if you're strong.
* I am what I earn.
* It is best to keep your problems to yourself.
* Winning is all that really matters.
Where did this stuff come from? It's everywhere in our society from the movies heroes we love to the politicians we vote for. Our culture demands that man fit in a tightly defined role. ~ Alan Downs

Burroughs was never really that pleased with the way popular culture and society treated his character. He tried to make a few movies of his own as a result, but they weren't very good. ~ Brendan Fraser

If we don't figure out a way to create equity, real equity, of opportunity and access, to good schools, housing, health care, and decent paying jobs, we're not going to survive as a productive and healthy society. ~ Tim Wise

Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education, and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why? This should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage and tie our kids' shoes. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

All that Lenin learned about business from the tales of his comrades who occasionally sat in business offices was that it required a lot of scribbling, recording, and ciphering. Thus, he declares that accounting and control are the chief things necessary for the organizing and correct functioning of society ... Here we have the philosophy of the filing clerk in its full glory. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

As I hope this list of "integration concerns" illustrates, not every identity threat comes from prejudiced people. Think about O'Connor on the Supreme Court before Ginsburg. Many of the contingencies she dealt with had little to do with prejudice among her fellow justices or her staff. Some of them may have been prejudiced, but her problems went beyond that: a Court that was dominated by male sensibilities and referents and that was less sensitive, in its functioning, to the perspectives of women; no critical mass of women with which to give her a sense of belonging on the Court; negative stereotypes about women in the larger society and in the legal world that were available for use in judging her work; the fact that her being the only woman on the Court made her the sole representative of her sex in each Court decision; and so on. O'Connor would have had to deal with these things even if there hadn't been an iota of sexism in any of the people she worked with. ~ Claude M. Steele

Society: an inferno of saviors! ~ Emile M. Cioran

I wanted a racially just society. I wanted to end wars. I wanted to end white supremacy. I wanted to create a world that was based on egalitarianism, sharing, racial justice. ~ Bill Ayers

It is difficult to age because society won't let you. People expect you to look how you did at the height of your fame. ~ Koo Stark

The more the problems in a society, the greater the chances of success. ~ Sunday Adelaja

In actual fact, however, the revolt of Ibsen and Shaw against the conventional nineteenth century drama could very well be described as a return to Shakespeare, as an attempt once again to present human beings in their historical and social setting and not, as playwrights since the Restoration had done, either as wholly private or as embodiments of the social manners of a tiny class. Shakespeare's plays, it is true, are not, in the Shavian sense, "dramas of thought," that is to say, not one of his characters is an intellectual: it is true, as Shaw says, that, when stripped of their wonderful diction, the philosophical and moral views expressed by his characters are commonplaces, but the number of people in any generation or society whose thoughts are not commonplace is very small indeed. On the other hand, there is hardly one of his plays which does not provide unending food for thought, if one cares to think about it. ~ W. H. Auden

Sex, after all, is about being separate and joined at the same time. The fact that men tend to emphasize the former and women the latter is not an irreducible fact of gender, but the result of asymmetries in childrearing and socialization. But more than that, such tensions reflect the fact that in our society as a whole we don't know how to be involved with one another without feeling burdened or selfishly indulgent without feeling guilty. If we can solve this problem on a societal level, it will go a long way to solving it in the bedroom. ~ Michael J. Bader

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food. ~ Jill Lepore

My point here is to insist that the rich should pay their way, and that they can easily afford to do so. All of the angst of canceling vital government programs to close the deficit is a charade put on by the rich for the rich. With a fair tax structure and a just contribution of the rich to the rest of society, we can afford a truly civilized America. Let ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. Advanced art today is no longer a cause -it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out. ~ Harold Rosenberg

Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease. ~ Eric Hoffer

In a decadent society people can slowly drift or slowly be drawn by the culture of commerce into yearning for violence. Maybe people have a deep congenital awareness that no civilization lasts forever, that the most peaceful prosperity will someday have to end, or maybe it's just human nature ~ Jonathan Franzen

Life is full of joys and sorrows, much of it our own making. Sadly, the West has voted time and time again for bigger government, more inflation, higher taxes and excessive regulation - all policies that have kept us from Adam Smith's vision of an opulent society. ~ Mark Skousen

People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. ~ Margaret Thatcher

secularism should be understood as the view that: government should not involve itself with religious matters; religious doctrine should play no role in shaping public policy or in the discourse about public policy; and religious institutions and beliefs should not enjoy a privileged position within society. ~ Ronald A. Lindsay

[P]erfect freedom consists in obeying the dictates of right reason, and submitting to natural law. When a man goes beyond or contrary to the law of nature and reason, he ... introduces confusion and disorder into society ... [thus] where licentiousness begins, liberty ends. ~ Samuel West

I don't know why, but audiences are often sympathetic to thieves. Sometimes they are more sympathetic to thieves then they are to earnest people. What does that say about society? ~ Matt Dillon

I have a little theory about that, too. It's clearly envy. It's bringing people down to your size. It's a narcissistic impulse that didn't used to exist, but we've become increasingly narcissistic as a society, and envy is one of those outcomes. ~ Drew Pinsky

The real world of American society is one which it is very misleading to call simply a democracy. Of course, it is in a sense a democracy, but it is one in which there are enormous inequities in the distribution of power and force. For example, the entire commercial and industrial system is in principle excluded from the democratic process, including everything that goes on within it ~ Noam Chomsky

I think we should be worried about the fact that we have become, as a society, very focused on the way people look, the way they dress. I do think we should worry about that because we should be worried about content. We should be worried about ideas. We should not be putting form over function. ~ Christy Clark

If you wish to be popular in society consent to be taught many things you already know. ~ Charles Maurice De Talleyrand

I think it's important for scientists to be a bit less arrogant, a bit more humble, recognising we are capable of making mistakes and being fallacious - which is increasingly serious in a society where our work may have unpredictable consequences. ~ Robert Winston

Girls do what their mothers tell them. Ladies do what society tells them. Women make up their own minds. ~ Karen Kijewski

You can't be halfhearted in a revolution. Values that serve well in a civil society don't work in a state of nature. ~ Glenn Reynolds

Disciples are people who operate under the rule of God, and if we're not operating under the rule of God, we can't expect the broader society to take God seriously. ~ Tony Evans

Unfortunately, every era needs to demonize feminist. The Feminazi was the 1990s version. The term was coined by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to describe women who support abortion rights. It was taken up by ultra-right-wing conservatives everywhere and came to refer feminists in general. (…) A Feminazi is a strident, controlling bitch who –Oh, horrible crime!– insists on equal right for women. She doesn't agree with the right-wing construct that the man is the ruler of the home. Her goal in life is to turn men into whimpering slaves who take care of the kids and share the housecleaning, something men must resist at all costs or American society will crumple even more. The Guerrilla Girls are still waiting for the day when everyone will think of the Feminist as a positive stereotype. Don't let us wait too long. ~ Guerrilla Girls

Look you, there are only two classes of men, the magnanimous, and the rest; and I have reached an age when one has to take sides, to decide once and for all whom one is going to like and dislike, to stick to the people one likes, and, to make up for the time one has wasted with the others, never to leave them again as long as one lives. ~ Marcel Proust

I am sure you're very pleased to have a pair of foxes," Kestrel told Irex now, "but you'll have to do better."
"I set down my tile," Irex said coldly. "I cannot take it back."
"I'll let you take it back. Just this once."
"You want me to take it back."
"Ah. So you agree that I know what tile you mean to play."
Benix shifted his weight on Lady Faris's delicate chair. It creaked. "Flip the damn tile, Irex. And you, Kestrel: Quit toying with him."
"I'm merely offering friendly advice."
Benix snorted.
Kestrel watched Irex watch her, his anger mounting as he couldn't decide whether Kestrel's words were a lie, the well-meant truth, or a truth she hoped he would judge a lie. He flipped the tile: a fox.
"Too bad," said Kestrel, and turned over one of hers, adding a third bee to her other two matching tiles. She swept the four gold coins of the ante to her side of the table. "See, Irex? I had only your best interests at heart."
Benix blew out a gusty sigh. He settled back in his protesting chair, shrugged, and seemed the perfect picture of amused resignation. He kept his head bowed while he mixed the Bite and Sting tiles, but Kestrel saw him shoot Irex a wary glance. Benix, too, had seen the rage that turned Irex's face into stone.
Irex shoved back from the table. He stalked over the flagstone terrace to the grass, which bloomed with the highest members of Valorian society.
"That wasn't necessary," Benix told Kestrel.
"It ~ Marie Rutkoski

You know why I think we still execute people? Because, even if we don't want to say it out loud-for the really heinous crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring society closer together-huddle and circle our wagons-and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify those people? And what if, God forbid, they got it wrong? ~ Jodi Picoult