Society Quotes - Page 19

• Two people cannot be alone together for upwards of half an hour without one emerging as the superior.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Communication, Two, People

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• In a culture of electronic violence, images that once caused us to empathize with the pain and trauma of another human being, excite a momentary adrenaline rush. To be numb to another's pain - to be acculturated to violence - is one of the worst consequences our technological advances. That indifference transfers from the screen, TV, film, Internet, and electronic games to our everyday lives.

  John Naisbitt

  Pain, Communication, Games

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• Some of my unhappiest moments have been in organizations. Somehow it seems to be quite respectable to do things in organizations that you would never do in private life. I have had people insult me to my face in front of colleagues. I have had my feelings rammed down my throat on the pretext that it would do me good. I have been required to do things which I didn't agree with because the organization wished it... In my worst moments I have thought organizations were places designed to be run by sadists and staffed by masochists.

  Charles Handy

  Running, Communication, Worst Moments

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• Go light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social life ain't restful. Avoid running at all times. Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you.

  Satchel Paige

  Running, Communication, Light

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• There can be no be no better instruction... than that every man who is to deal with his neighbor to follow these commandments. 'Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them,' and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' If these were always followed, then everything would instruct and arrange itself; then no law books nor courts nor judicial actions would be required. All things would quietly and simply be set to rights, for everyone's heart and conscience would guide them.

  Martin Luther

  Book, Communication, Heart

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• Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.

  Immanuel Kant

  Determination, Communication, Mean

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• Empathy and fellow feeling form the very basis of morality. The capacities for empathy, for feeling responsibility toward others and for reaching out to help them can be stunted or undermined early on, depending on a child's experiences in the home and neighborhood. It becomes too easy to turn our backs on fellow human beings... to have 'compassion fatigue.' Technology, we are learning, is not neutral.

  Sissela Bok

  Children, Communication, Home

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• Justice and truth are the common ties of society

  John Locke

  Ties, Justice, Common

  John Locke (1828). “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: To which are Now First Added, I. An Analysis of Mr. Locke's Doctrine of Ideas, on a Large Sheet. II. A Defence of Mr. Locke's Opinion Concerning Personal Identity, with an Appendix. III. A Treatise on the Conduct of the Understanding. IV. Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman. V. Elements of Natural Philosophy. VI. A New Method of a Common Place-book Extracted from the Author's Works”, p.35

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• Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair. In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea.

  Michael Moore

  Country, Loss, Men

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• In the new enlightenment, the reason we are driven to become one with the life-process is not merely to experience some form of mystical oneness with everything. We strive to become one with it for the biggest reason there could be - so we can ultimately take responsibility for where it's going.

  Andrew Cohen

  Responsibility, Oneness, Community

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• The form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.

  John Adams

  Government, Numbers, Comfort

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.85, Hackett Publishing

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• Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Always Trying, Grind, Surface

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• Society is like a schoolmaster who estimates boys according to their conformity to a standard that is easiest for running a school.

  Henry Sidgwick

  Running, School, Boys

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• All for one; one for all.

  Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

  Witty, Humorous, Unity

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• If you really want to define civilization it should be a culture that doesn't destroy its environment. If you burn down the kitchen one day and expect to eat the next, it is not even intelligent, let alone civilized.

  Sting

  Intelligent, Civilization, Kitchen

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• Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Use, Comfort

  1605 The Advancement of Learning, bk.2.

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• Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o'er creation.

  Edward Young

  Finals, Ruins, Creation

  Edward Young (1820). “Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality”, p.271

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• I hold every man a debtor to his profession.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Debtors, Professionalism

  'The Elements of the Common Law' (1596) preface

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• Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.

  Henry Miller

  Optimistic, Eye, Land

  Henry Miller (1957). “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”, p.319, New Directions Publishing

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• The important thing about travel in foreign lands is that it breaks the speech habits and makes you blab less, and breaks the habitual space-feeling because of different village plans and different landscapes. It is less important that there are different mores, for you counteract these with your own reaction-formations.

  Paul Goodman

  Travel, Space, Land

  Paul Goodman (1966). “Five years”

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• Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.

  Ronald Wright

  People, History, Fascinated

  Ronald Wright (1986). “On Fiji Islands”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

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• Man was formed for society.

  Francis Bacon

  Men

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• For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Hatred, Secret

  Francis Bacon, Richard Whately (1867). “Lord Bacon's Essays: With a Sketch of His Life and Character, Reviews of His Philosophical Writings, Critical Estimates of His Essays, Analysis, Notes, and Queries for Students, and Select Portions of the ʻAnnotationsʼ of Archbishop Whately”, p.189

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• Delay is ever fatal to those who are prepared.

  Lucan

  Delay, Prepared

  "Pharsalia". Poem by Lucan, Book I, line 281,

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• There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find the hive.

  Kevin Kelly

  Forever, Bees, Found

  Kevin Kelly (1995). “Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World”, p.13, Basic Books

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