quotations about society
To me the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
The earth is much over-populated, hence that abominable institution called "Society."
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
EDWIN H. LAND
testimony, The Public Television Act of 1967: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications
Society is the theatre, obligatory for the emancipation and development of the creative power in man. To reject social life is to deprive ourselves of the power of profiting by the experience of the past and the present.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Those that angle in the waters of society catch only carps.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Society is all around
Aw, hear the beautiful sound
Of all the high-pitched squeals
Ecstatic brilliance at its finest
KURT VILE
"Society Is My Friend"
Society ... should be viewed only as a titled harlot, elegant and fascinating as a Circe, but false and treacherous as a serpent; agreeable enough to pass an idle hour with, but fatal the moment we give it credit for sincerity, and seek a closer intimacy.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
I know, sir, that the people talk about the liberty of nature, and assert, that we divest ourselves of a portion of it, when we enter into society. This is declamation against matter of fact. We cannot live without society; and as to liberty, how can I be said to enjoy that which another may take from me, when he pleases. The liberty of one depends not so much on the removal of all restraint from him, as on the due restraint upon the liberty of others. Without such restraint, there can be no liberty. Liberty is so far from being endangered or destroyed by this, that it is extended and secured. For I said, that we do not enjoy that which another may take from us. But civil liberty cannot be taken from us, when any one may please to invade it; for we have the strength of the society on our side.
FISHER AMES
speech in the Convention of Massachusetts, on Biennial Elections, January 1788
In human society the warmth is mainly at the bottom.
NOEL JACK COUNHIAN
Age
An individual takes on significance only in his relationship to society as a whole.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
Sanity means the wholeness of the consciousness.
And our society is only part conscious, like an idiot.
D. H. LAWRENCE
"Nemesis"
What a glorious time it will be when Society discovers that most of the punishment it inflicts ought not to have been inflicted on its children, but on itself.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Society: The Perfect Mother", Reactions and Other Essays Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitude of Mind That Find Expression In Our Individual Qualities
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one--
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
ROBERT BROWNING
Luria
Making something out of nothing
With punk we have a start
You can see it in our faces
We're here to kick society's ass
THE CASUALTIES
"Sell Out Society"
Man is a social being, and needs society and laws regulating social intercourse between states, tribes, and nations, as much as between individuals.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD
William H. Seward's Travels Around the World
Man becomes so accustomed to the society in which he has passed his life, that its institutions, laws, and customs grow upon him until they become a second nature; his feelings, views, and prejudices are so interwoven with its whole mechanism, that he looks upon it as natural, unchangeable, and perfect. So great is his illusion, that the evils he labours under, are attributed to every cause but the true one--the defective organization of society; and while the government, the administration, and even religion are doubted and criticized, the social system, as if it were some thing superior to human imperfection and error, alone commands the respect and reverence of all.
ALBERT BRISBANE
Social Destiny of Man: Or, Association and Reorganization of Industry
It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power or means to coerce others.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Men living always in groups cooperate like the organs in an organism. Their actions have a common impulse and a common end. Their desires and opinions bear the common stamp of an impersonal direction. Much of their life is common to all. The roads, market-places and temples, are for each and all. The experiences, the dogmas, and the doctrines are for each and all. Customs arise, and are formulated in laws, the restraint of all. The customs, born of the circumstances, immanent in the social conditions, are consciously extricated and prescribed as the rules of life; each new generation is born in this social medium, and has to adapt itself to the established forms.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
Problems of Life and Mind