Society Quotes - Page 6

• Those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which ... trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and licence to do what they pleased as happiness, but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser.

  Isocrates

  Freedom, Equality, Rights

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• ...gender relationships, which are tough for people to deal with, are key to whether a society orients to domination or partnership in all its relations.

  Riane Eisler

  Women, Keys, People

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• If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come the grass roots up, not from the top down.

  Paul Hawken

  Inspirational, Nature, Top Down

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• Nothing can be more readily disproved than the old saw, "You can't keep a good man down." Most human societies have been beautifully organized to keep good men down.

  John W. Gardner

  Men, Good Man, Saws

  Dr. John W. Gardner (2015). “Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?”, p.12, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.

  Samuel Johnson

  Believe, Men, Caves

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1834). “Murphy's essay. The rambler. The adventurer. The idler. Rasselas. Tales of the imagination. Letters. Irene. Miscellaneous poems”, p.375

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• Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?

  John Milton

  Delight, Harmony, Paradise Lost Book 1

  1665 Adam. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.8, l.383-4.

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• Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

  Benjamin Barber

  School, Men, Jail

  Benjamin R. Barber (2000). “A Passion for Democracy: American Essays”, p.221, Princeton University Press

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• When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Thinking, Errors, Democracies Have

  "The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 12, p. 330, 1977.

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• Death is losing its terror. It is the emergency exit for a world that is becoming more frightening death ever was.

  Julian Green

  Becoming, World, Emergencies

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• The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Past, Saturated, Pregnant

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• Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse.

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Men, Solitude, Curse

  Anna Letitia Barbauld, Lucy Aikin (1825). “The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld: in two volumes”, p.96

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• Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Lying, Fire, Skills

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.56, Penguin

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• Morality, thou deadly bane,Thy tens o' thousands thou has slain!

  Robert Burns

  Morality, Bane

  Robert Burns (1859). “The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing His Poems, Songs and Correspondence”, p.124

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• In history the way of annihilation is invariably prepared by inward degeneration, by decrease of life. Only then can a shock from outside put an end to the whole.

  Jacob Burckhardt

  Inward, Way, Ends

  Jacob Burckhardt (1964). “Force and Freedom: Reflections on History”, New York : Pantheon Books

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• most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.

  Ernst Mayr

  Logic, Study, Problem

  Ernst Mayr (1982). “The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance”, p.6, Harvard University Press

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• In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  War, Power, History

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• The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.

  James Russell Lowell

  Rotten, Ripe

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.48

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• We need to change society's ordering principle from economic to humanitarian values, from money as the bottom line to love as the bottom line.

  Marianne Williamson

  Love, Change, Money

  FaceBook post by Marianne Williamson from May 26, 2013

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• It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Yoga, Health

  "The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity". Book by Mark Vonnegut, 1975.

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• The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights.

  Ralph Bunche

  Rights, Progress, Upheaval

  "Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1950.

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• Democracy is not just a question of having a vote. It consists of strengthening each citizen's possibility and capacity to participate in the deliberations involved in life in society.

  Fernando Henrique Cardoso

  Teamwork, Democracy, Collaboration

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• What is called 'capitalism'is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close cooperation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Exercise, Accountability

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Language and Politics”, p.784, AK Press

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• 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

  Real, Distribution Of Power, Democracy

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• It's important to recognize that expanding the circle of opportunity
  and increasing the democratic potential of our own society,
  as well as those across the world, is a continuing process of inclusion.

  Hillary Clinton

  Opportunity, Circles, Important

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• The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen - a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.

  William O. Douglas

  Taken, Government, Secret

  "Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. December 12, 1966.

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