Society Quotes - Page 40

• Society is no more indulgent than was the God of Genesis.

  Honore de Balzac

  Genesis, Indulgence

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• According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.

  Honore de Balzac

  Men, Sheep, Sea

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• The individual who has been liberated by reason is always running head-on into a world, a society, whose past in the shape of 'prejudices' has a great deal of power; he is forced to learn that past reality is also a reality.

  Hannah Arendt

  Running, Past, Reality

  Hannah Arendt (1974). “Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• I never mingled with men, but I came home less of a man than I went out.

  Johannes Tauler

  Home, Men

  Gottesfreund (im Oberland.), Rulman Merswin, Johannes Tauler (1857). “The history and life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg: with twenty-five of his sermons (Temp. 1340)”, p.204

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• if we don't begin by imagining the perfect society, how shall we create one?

  Isabel Allende

  Perfect, Imagination, Ifs

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• If experience teaches anything, it is that what the community undertakes to do is usually done badly. This is due in part to the temptation to corruption that such enterprises involve, but even more, perhaps, to the lack of personal interest on the part of those engaged in them.

  Suzanne La Follette

  Community, Temptation, Done

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• Society is the master, and man is the servant.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Men, Masters, Servant

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• Let us get on with creating the democratic and pluralistic society that we say we are.

  Barbara Mikulski

  Creating, Democratic

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• The future of human society. Had it made an irrevocably false start? The compass error that gets harder to correct with every mile you go?

  Sybille Bedford

  Errors, Compass, Made

  Sybille Bedford (2017). “A Favourite of the Gods and A Compass Error”, p.280, New York Review of Books

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• Society is the true sphere of human virtue. In social, active life, difficulties will perpetually be met with; restraints of many kinds will be necessary; and studying to behave right in respect of these is a discipline of the human heart, useful to others, and improving to itself. Suffering is no duty, but where it is necessary to avoid guilt, or to do good; nor pleasure a crime, but where it strengthens the influence of bad inclinations, or lessens the generous activity of virtue.

  Elizabeth Carter

  Heart, Discipline, Suffering

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1806). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes ...”, p.259

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• Industrial societies can only be run successfully by dictators or oligarchs.

  Dora Russell

  Running, Dictator

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• Leaving home' to me means adopting the attitude that the pursuit of the truth is more vital than the pursuit of what society — your home — tells you is important.

  Brad Warner

  Attitude, Truth, Mean

  Brad Warner (2010). “Sex, Sin, and Zen: Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between”, p.158, New World Library

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• Anybody who feels at ease in the world today is a fool.

  Robert M. Hutchins

  Stupidity, Ease, World

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• General jackdaw culture, very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions, untargeted enthusiasms, and a general habit of skimming.

  William Bolitho

  Culture, Littles, Enthusiasm

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• It is an aphorism in physic, that unwholesome airs, because perpetually sucked into the lungs, do distemper health more than coarser diet used but at set times. The like may be said of society, which, if good, is a better refiner of the spirits than ordinary books.

  Frances Osborne

  Book, Air, Ordinary

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• As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles; and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we experience.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Circles, Mountain, Apathy

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.115

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• It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Class, Feelings

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• Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but, at the same time, best know how to prize them the most. But no company is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Vices, Disease, Want

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.128

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• We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation; but when we receive it, we are lowered.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Genius, Neglected

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.156

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• Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; the strength he gains is from the embrace he gives.

  Alexander Pope

  Men, Giving, Vines

  Alexander Pope (2012). “Essay on Man and Other Poems”, p.68, Courier Corporation

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• That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.

  Aubrey Menen

  Atheist, Thinking, Religion

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• The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.

  Cyril Connolly

  Communication, Survival, Language

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• The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Wisdom, Fashion

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.86, Stanford University Press

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• Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of; just as we call "money" not only that which is legal, but also any counterfeit that will pass.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Truth, Corruption, Counterfeit

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.505, Stanford University Press

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• One reason--perhaps the chief--of the virility of the Roosevelts is [their] very democratic spirit. They have never felt that because they were born in a good position they could put their hands in their pockets and succeed. They have felt, rather, that being born in a good position, there is no excuse for them if they did not do their duty by the community.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Hands, Community, Pockets

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