Human Society Quotes - Page 5

• The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective.

  Arnold J. Toynbee

  Thinking, Race, Political

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• The anthropologist respects history, but he does not accord it a special value. He conceives it as a study complementary to his own: one of them unfurls the range of human societies in time, the other in space.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Space, Special, Doe

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• Country' and 'city' are very powerful words, and this is not surprising when we remember how much they seem to stand for in the experience of human communities. In English, 'country' is both a nation and a part of a 'land'; 'the country' can be the whole society or its rural area. In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known.

  Raymond Williams

  Country, Powerful, Land

  Raymond Williams (1975). “The Country and the City”, p.1, Oxford University Press, USA

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• You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society.

  Frans de Waal

  Hands, Design, Should

  "Frans de Waal on Politics, Fairness, and Human Nature". Interview with Eric Michael Johnson, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 14, 2011.

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• The church, inserted and active in human society and in history, does not exist in order to exercise political power or to govern the society.

  Claudio Hummes

  Exercise, Order, Political

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• If any country were indeed filled with men, each thus diligently discharging the duties of his own station without breaking in upon the rights of others, but on the contrary endeavoring, so far as he might be able, to forward their views and promote their happiness, all would be active and harmonious in the goodly frame of human society.

  William Wilberforce

  Country, Men, Rights

  William Wilberforce (2005). “A Practical View of Preferred Christians”, p.119, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Profit is the sole criterion used by the establishment to evaluate economic activity. From the rat race to lame ducks. The vocabulary in vogue is a give-away. It's more reminiscent of a human menagerie than human society.

  Jimmy Reid

  Vocabulary, Race, Ducks

  "Still irresistible, a working-class hero's finest speech". www.independent.co.uk. August 12, 2010.

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• No human society is too primitive to have some kind of literature. The only thing is that primitive literature hasn't yet become distinguished from other aspects of life: it's still embedded in religion, magic and social ceremonies.

  Northrop Frye

  Magic, Literature, Kind

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.447, University of Toronto Press

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• The greatest and noblest pleasure we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices... A man who seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

  Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

  Truth, Men, Prejudice

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• In such systems, there is unquestioning respect for authority. Faith trumps evidence. But if indeed this is broadly the explanation for how co-operative behaviour has evolved and been maintained in human societies, it could be very bad news. Because although such authoritarian systems seem to be good at preserving social coherence and an orderly society, they are, by the same token, not good at adapting to change.

  Robert May, Baron May of Oxford

  Behaviour, News, Coherence

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• Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Routine, Attention

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.120, Cambridge University Press

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• I perfectly understand the particular attention which you pay to the question of nuclear energy, and fully realize the possible dangers and catastrophes which might result for mankind from an irresponsible attitude. In this field my wish is for Iran to put all her efforts towards the peaceful use of atomic energy. We shall continue to co-operate with all the nations of the world to attain this end in the interests of human society.

  Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

  Attitude, Iran, Effort

  Message to the White House in April 1977. "The Shah's Story". Book by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, pp. 67-68, 1980.

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• Government is the greatest combination for forces known to human society. It can command more men and raise more money than any and all other agencies combined.

  David Dudley Field II

  Men, Agency, Force

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• No science of any kind can be divorced from ethical considerations... Science is a human learning process which arises in certain subcultures in human society and not in others, and a subculture as we seen is a group of people defined by acceptance of certain common values, that is, an ethic which permits extensive communication between them.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Communication, Acceptance, People

  "Economics As A Moral Science" (1969) by Kenneth E. Boulding (p. 2), as quoted in "Kenneth Boulding as a Moral Scientist" by John B. Davis, 2011.

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• It is likely ... that human society cannot exist without some source of sacredness. Those states which have sought openly to remove it have tended in the end to assume divinity themselves.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Divinity, Assuming, Ends

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• This is our greatest challenge: learning to live in a crowded and interconnected world that is creating unprecedented pressures on human society and on the physical environment.

  Jeffrey Sachs

  Creating, Challenges, World

  "Lecture 1 by Jeffrey Sachs, at the Royal Society, London". www.bbc.co.uk. 2007.

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• I think a lot of things will be self-correcting, even in America. After all, human societies are essentially self-organizing emergent systems. The catch is, how much disorder will we have to endure while this re-self-organizing process occurs.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Thinking, Self, America

  Source: www.treehugger.com

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• We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Selfishness, Looks, Human Nature

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

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• I think gender inequality is a problem that goes back a long, long time. In human society, as a whole, women have tended to have a kind of inferior position - very often combined with playing up women as great role [models].

  Amartya Sen

  Thinking, Long, Role Models

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Enthusiasm produces the most cruel disorders in human society; but its fury is like that of thunder and tempest, which exhaust themselves in a little time, and leave the air more calm and serene than before.

  David Hume

  Air, Littles, Enthusiasm

  David Hume (1788). “Essays, moral, political, and literary.- v. 2. An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.72

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• No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.

  David Hume

  Agreement, Perfect, Doubt

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.349, Courier Corporation

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• News for the godless: religion is inescapable. there has never been a human society without some form of worship. And don't point to communist societies like the Soviet Union - they worshipped blue jeans.

  Stephen Colbert

  Blue, Jeans, Religion

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• In every human society of which we know - prehistoric, ancient or modern, whether hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agricultural or industrial - at least some form of art is displayed, and not only displayed, but highly regarded and willingly engaged in.

  Ellen Dissanayake

  Art, Culture, Hunters

  Ellen Dissanayake (1992). “Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why”

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• There’s always been a need for horror fiction, though - ghost stories have been a staple of every human society since the beginning of recorded literature - and while commercially the field may have its ups and downs, it will never go away. Hell, look at the Bible: gods, devils, ghosts, witches, giants, resurrections. That’s one big horror story. And it’s the most popular book on the planet.

  Bentley Little

  Book, Ghost Stories, Horror Stories

  "Bentley Little: The Elusive Dark Scribe Speaks". Interview with Vince A. Liaguno, www.darkscribemagazine.com. September 13, 2007.

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• The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern nation-state, we seem capable of levels of folly and self-destruction to be found nowhere else in all of nature. But if we keep at it and keep alive, we are in for one surprise after another. We can build structures for human society never seen before, thoughts never heard before, music never heard before.

  Lewis Thomas

  Persistence, Self, Numbers

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