quotations about society
No one has yet been found resolute enough in dogmatizing to deny that Nature made man equal; that society has destroyed this equality is a truth not more incontrovertible.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to Elizabeth Hitchener, July 25, 1811
I may travel, perhaps. So you have got to like society, and would enjoy it, you think? For me, I always hated it--have put up with it these six or seven years past, lest by foregoing it I should let some unknown good escape me, in the true time of it, and only discover my fault when too late; and now that I have done most of what is to be done, any lodge in a garden of cucumbers for me!
ROBERT BROWNING
letter to Elizabeth Barrett, March 12, 1845
No more pay and lots of leisure
In this low society
Low society
I'm just doing what I can
In this low society
But I'm an incidental man
HEAVEN 17
"Low Society"
Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect chock-damp.
THOMAS PRUEN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Society is divided into two classes--the shearers and the shorn; we should always be with the former against the latter.
NAPOLEON
attributed, Day's Collacon
In society men protect themselves by protecting one another.
EMPEROR FOHI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Those who suffer their happiness to depend on the futile pleasures of society, instead of the resources of their own minds, resemble birds, who, with the power of soaring into the pure regions of the sky, descend, and loiter amid the dust of the earth, at the risk of being snared or destroyed by every vagrant urchin.
LADY BLESSINGTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind. And the greatest of these results is this wonderful spectacle of society, which is ever new, and yet ever the same; in which accidents pass and essence remains; in which one generation dies and another succeeds, as if they were birds in a cage, or animals in a menagerie; of which it seems almost more than a metaphor to treat the parts as limbs of a perpetual living thing, so silently do they seem to change, so wonderfully and so perfectly does the conspicuous life of the new year take the place of the conspicuous life of last year.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The truth is that a vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person. Without that restructuring the good will that holds society together will be slowly dissipated. It is that sense of futility which permeates the present series of protests and dissents. Where there is a persistent sense of futility, there is violence; and that is where we are today.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
Points of Rebellion
Every society has the criminals it deserves.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Red Emma Speaks
Hitherto, every form of society has been based ... on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.
KARL MARX
The Communist Manifesto
We are rated by normality
One shall never stand out
Personalities are deflated
During the first days in school
Belong to society by following the rules
Belong, with no way to choose
ROTTEN SOUND
"Follow"
Society is the master, and man is the servant; and it is entirely according as society proves a good or bad master, whether he turns out a bad or good servant.
GEORGE AUGUSTUS HENRY SALA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Society is addicted to growth, and that's having terrible consequences for the planet and, increasingly, for us as well. We have to change our collective and individual behavior and give up something we depend on--power over our environment. We must restrain ourselves, like an alcoholic foreswearing booze. That requires honesty and soul-searching.
RICHARD HEINBERG
"Systemic Change Driven by Moral Awakening Is Our Only Hope", EcoWatch, August 14, 2017
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
It may be that our society is only passing through a period of ugly transition, but the present evil has its root deep down in the social organization, and springs from a diseased public opinion.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
"A Chapter of Erie", North American Review, July 1869
Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.
EURIPIDES
fragment, Phoemissae
Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Coming of Age