quotations about society
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
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
In human society the warmth is mainly at the bottom.
NOEL JACK COUNHIAN
Age
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
Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by it.
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS
The Monk
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
If you really wish to become a man of society, you must learn first either to be an imbecile or to hold your tongue.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
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
The earth is much over-populated, hence that abominable institution called "Society."
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
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 delights in society far more than do bees or herds.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
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
An individual takes on significance only in his relationship to society as a whole.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
Those that angle in the waters of society catch only carps.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Sanity means the wholeness of the consciousness.
And our society is only part conscious, like an idiot.
D. H. LAWRENCE
"Nemesis"
Our societies are changing. It is no longer an atmosphere of repression that weighs upon us, that haunts our streets and our minds. It is the glossy, efficiency-minded atmosphere which is knocking the wind out of us. Literally, euphoria, dumping and acceleration are absorbing all the oxygen from the atmosphere and leaving us like washed-up fish. It is no longer light we are short of, nor cash, but air.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Cool Memories
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
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"