Ideal Society Quotes

• The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others.

  Edward Abbey

  Mean, Men, Ideals

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

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• During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Success

  FaceBook post by Nelson Mandela from Apr 20, 2014

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• I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.

  Nelson Mandela

  Wisdom, Opportunity, Equality

  Statement at trial, Johannesburg, South Africa, 20 Apr. 1964

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• The ideal society has yet to be built - one which balances nicely collective well-being and individual well-being.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Balance, Individual, Social Change

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.105, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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• Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination.

  George Santayana

  Drama, Ideas, Imagination

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2013). “The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society, Volume VII, Book Two”, p.89, MIT Press

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• In an ideal society, mothers and fathers would produce potty- trained, civilized, responsible new citizens while government and corporate leaders would provide a safe, healthy, economically just community.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Father, Government

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

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• To any intelligent being, there is no emotion more important than hope. Individually or collectively, we must hope that the future will be better than the past, that our offspring, and theirs after them, will be a bit closer to an ideal society, whatever our perception of that might be... It is at those times when we feel we are contributing to that ultimate end... we feel true elation.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Intelligent, Past, Perception

  R.A. Salvatore (2009). “Siege of Darkness: The Legend of Drizzt”, p.15, Wizards of the Coast

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• The effort of building an ideal society always leads to violence, often to very extensive violence. Because, whether we like it or not, it is not possible to create an ideal society with imperfect people. And this, unfortunately, we are. So the main purpose for Nazism as well as for Communism was to create a 'new person'. In order to make room for it, the world needed to be rid of its non-perfect models.

  Mart Laar

  Order, People, Perfect

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• We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society.

  John Dewey

  Regard, Ideals

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education”, p.86, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• States can be more or less democratic, and so can socialism. I think any ideal society that exists on a large scale, which is what we most likely have in store for us as a human race, will involve some aspects of socialism.

  Cynthia Kauffman

  Thinking, Race, Socialism

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• There are two generic and invariable features that characterize utopias. One is the content: the authors of utopias paint what they consider to be ideal societies; translating this into the language of mathematics, we might say that utopias bear a + sign. The other feature, organically growing out of the content, is to be found in the form: a utopia is always static; it is always descriptive and has no, of almost no, plot dynamics.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Two

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• We must help all our young people to understand that ours is still a very poor country, that we cannot change this situation radically in a short time, and that only through the united efforts of our younger generation and all our people, working with their own hands, can China be made strong and prosperous within a period of several decades. The establishment of our socialist system has opened the road leading to the ideal society of the future, but to translate this ideal into reality needs hard work.

  Mao Zedong

  Country, Strong, Hard Work

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• This present system by which industry is motivated exclusively by the quest for maximal profits - though it may have helped a great deal to develop, to industrialize our country so rapidly and so successfully - now it's clearly passed its usefulness. It is keeping us from achieving the ideal society that we should have. We say industry must produce to improve the quality of life for all our people.

  Benjamin Spock

  Country, Should Have, People

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• It strikes me often while I am in Iran that were Christian evangelicals to take a tour of Iran today, they might find it the model for an ideal society they seek in America. Replace Allah with God, Mohammad with Jesus, keep the same public and private notions of chastity, sin, salvation, and God's will, and a Christian Republic is born.

  Hooman Majd

  Christian, Jesus, Iran

  Hooman Majd (2008). “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran”, p.196, Anchor

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• Our ideal society finds it essential to put a rent on land as a way of maximizing the total consumption available to the society. ...Pure land rent is in the nature of a 'surplus' which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency. A land value tax can be called 'the useful tax on measured land surplus'.

  Paul Samuelson

  Land, Essentials, Incentives

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• I think we need to just be very clear about what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly, we're not trying to create the perfect democracy. We're never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security.

  David Cameron

  Thinking, Perfect, Trying

  "British Prime Minister David Cameron Speaks to ABC's Diane Sawyer". Interview with Diane Sawyer, abcnews.go.com. July 20, 2010.

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