quotations about society
Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
Put me to sleep or take me away
I don't want to be a part of this sick society
NASUM
"Escape"
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 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
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
Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect chock-damp.
THOMAS PRUEN
attributed, Day's Collacon
I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.
EMILY BRONTË
Wuthering Heights
Hitherto, every form of society has been based ... on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.
KARL MARX
The Communist Manifesto
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
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
Society,
Pay your taxes stand in line help them plan for your demise.
PENNYWISE
"Society"
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
In society men protect themselves by protecting one another.
EMPEROR FOHI
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
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
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"
Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.
EURIPIDES
fragment, Phoemissae
Society therefore is as ancient as the world.
VOLTAIRE
A Philosophical Dictionary
I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Table Talk