Society Quotes - Page 8

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  The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

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• The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

  Robert Peel

  Giving, Community, Police

  "Introduction to Criminal Justice". Book by Larry Siegel (p. 202), January 5, 2009.

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• All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

  John Stossel

  Rights, Erosion, Government

  FaceBook post by John Stossel from Mar 29, 2013

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• The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Discovery, America

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• Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Sarcastic

  Quoted in More Maxims of Mark, ed. Merle Johnson (1927)

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• The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Wisdom

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• In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.

  Ayn Rand

  Freedom, Stupid People, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.53, Penguin

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• Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.

  Aldous Huxley

  Powerful, Ignorance, Knowledge

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

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• Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society... Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Depression, Depressing, Mean

  "The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future" by Theodore J. Kaczynski, ("Control of Human Behavior", item 145), 1995.

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• We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Brother, Yoga

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• Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.

  Marilyn Manson

  Change, Time, Media

  "47 years of Marilyn Manson: Has the society finally understood him?". www.radioandmusic.com. January 5, 2016.

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• But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.

  Gustavo Gutiérrez

  Responsibility, Destiny, Order

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• Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.

  Robert Kennedy

  Change, Courage, Men

  Robert F. Kennedy's Day of Affirmation Address at the University of Capetown, South Africa, www.mtholyoke.edu. June 6, 1966.

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• Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

  Dr. Seuss

  Inspirational, Life, Friendship

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• Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Motivational, Humorous

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• Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

  Cory Doctorow

  Happiness, Men, Power

  Cory Doctorow (2010). “Little Brother”, p.235, Tor Teen

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• The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Success, Cheating, Freedom

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• Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically, the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically, it is the erosion of ambition.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Ambition, Erosion

  Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.229, Penguin

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• By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively- a never-ending process

  Johan Galtung

  Inspirational, Sympathy, Peace

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• To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.

  Mark Twain

  Graduation, Party, Power

  Mark Twain (2012). “Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader’s Edition”, p.169, Univ of California Press

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• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

  Emma Lazarus

  Inspirational, Freedom, Tired

  "The New Colossus" l. 10 (1883).

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• Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.

  Helen Caldicott

  Teacher, Appreciation, Teaching

  Helen Caldicott (2009). “If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Save the Earth (Revised and updated)”, p.220, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Not every person is going to understand you and that's okay. They have a right to their opinion and you have every right to ignore it.

  Joel Osteen

  Inspirational, Life, Attitude

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• Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists...it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.

  Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

  Inspirational, Equality, Availability

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• Black! Black! Black! I am proud of being a Negro. Nor have I ever tried to beg tolerance from anyone. Superiority is not proved by color, but by the brain, by education, by willpower, by moral courage.

  Jose Celso Barbosa

  Education, Color, Justice

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