Modern Society Quotes - Page 2

• Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society... Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Depression, Depressing, Mean

  "The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future" by Theodore J. Kaczynski, ("Control of Human Behavior", item 145), 1995.

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• Depression: the healthy suspicion that modern life has no meaning and that modern society is absurd and alienating.

  Neel Burton

  Healthy, Modern Life, Absurd

  Neel Burton (2017). “Growing from Depression, second edition”, p.61, Acheron Press

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• Modern society includes three types of men who can never think very highly of the world--the priest, the physician, and the attorney-at-law. They all wear black, too, for are they not in mourning for every virtue and every illusion?

  Honore de Balzac

  Men, Thinking, Law

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• Evidence is strongly suggesting Bipolar Disorder - previously known as Manic Depression - may be dramatically increasing in modern society.

  Gordon Parker

  Bipolar, May, Modern

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• The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Society, Degradation

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• You need to look at inequality as a typical condition of modern society.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Typical, Needs, Looks

  "'Lagos shows how a city can recover from a deep, deep pit': Rem Koolhaas talks to Kunlé Adeyemi". Interview with Chris Michael, www.theguardian.com. February 26, 2016.

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• Yoga is as old and traditional as civilization, yet it persists in modern society as a means to achieving essential vitality. But yoga demands that we develop not only strength in body but attention and awareness in mind.The yogi knows that the physical body is not only the temple for our soul but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core.

  B.K.S. Iyengar

  Yoga, Mean, Journey

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• Key in life is to be able to answer the question "How much is enough?" Modern society has a desire to accumulate stuff & do nothing with it

  Gunter Pauli

  Keys, Desire, Able

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• Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Inspirational, Motivational, Divinity

  Swami Vivekananda, Swami Adiswarananda (2006). “Vivekananda, World Teacher: His Teachings on the Spiritual Unity of Humankind”, p.86, SkyLight Paths Publishing

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• Clearly it's not easy for woman in modern society, no matter where we live. We still have to go extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. We have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Sacrifice, Men, Matter

  "Whither Pakistan: Dictatorship Or Democracy?".

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• Boxing was on the one hand barbaric, unconscionable, out of place in modern society. But then, so are war, racism, poverty, and pro football. Men died boxing, yet there was nobility in defending oneself.

  Ralph Wiley

  Football, War, Men

  Ralph Wiley (2000). “Serenity: A Boxing Memoir”, p.31, U of Nebraska Press

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• Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.

  Charles Bukowski

  Real, Two, People

  Charles Bukowski (1978). “Women”

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• But with the steady disintegration of the family in modern society over the last century, the role of the school in bridging the gap has become vital!

  Stephen Covey

  School, Gaps, Lasts

  "Our Children and the Crisis in Education" by Stephen R. Covey, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 20, 2010.

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• What should have died along with communism is the belief that modern societies can be run on a single principle, whether that of planning under the general will or that of free-market allocations.

  Charles Taylor

  Running, Should Have, Principles

  Charles Taylor (1992). “The Ethics of Authenticity”, p.110, Harvard University Press

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• Beginning with Santa Claus as a cognitive exercise, a child is encouraged to share the same idea of reality as his peers. Even if that reality is patently invented and ludicrous, belief is encouraged with gifts that support and promote the common cultural lies. The greatest consensus in modern society is our traffic systems. The way a flood of strangers can interact, sharing a path, almost all of them traveling without incident. It only takes one dissenting driver to create anarchy.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Children, Lying, Exercise

  "Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey". Book by Chuck Palahniuk, May 1, 2007.

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• The main theme to emerge... is that there appear to be two modes of thinking, verbal and nonverbal, represented rather separately in left and right hemispheres respectively and that our education system, as well as science in general, tends to neglect the nonverbal form of intellect. What it comes down to is that modern society discriminates against the right hemisphere.

  Roger Wolcott Sperry

  Thinking, Two, Hemisphere

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• Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,- criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led, - this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Government, Leader, Soul

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois”, p.49, Oxford University Press

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• The future of modern society depends much more on the quiet heroism of the very few who are inspired by God. These few will greatly enjoy the divine inspiration and will be prepared to stand for the dignity of Man and true freedom and to keep the Law of God, even of it means martyrdom or death.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Inspiration, Mean, Men

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.29, SCM Press

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• That decision to use basically all white models, reveals a trait that is unbecoming to modern society. It can no longer be accepted...

  Bethann Hardison

  White, Decision, Use

  "Fashion Designers Accused Of Racism In Letter" by Julee Wilson, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 6, 2013.

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• One great feature of modern society is the institutionalized respect we give to processes designed to destroy the past.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Past, Giving, Modern

  Lawrence Lessig (2009). “Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy”, p.140, A&C Black

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• There are three things healthy people most need to do - to be creatively productive, to render service, and to act in accordance with their moral impulses. In all three respects modern society frustrates most people most of the time.

  E. F. Schumacher

  People, Healthy, Three Things

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• The Americans of 1776 were among the first men in modern society to defend rather than to seek an open society and constitutional liberty.... Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this political theory sits in its deep-seated conservatism. However radical the principles of the Revolution may have seemed to the rest of the world, in the minds of the colonists they were thoroughly preservative and respectful of the past.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Past, Men, America

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• Ironing boards are a classic example of something I find horrible about modern society: the excitementation, for want of a better word, of mundane things.

  Daniel Radcliffe

  Ironing Board, Example, Boards

  "Dan the man". Interview with Craig McLean, www.theguardian.com. July 3, 2009.

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• A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Writing, People, Half

  The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski (2005). “The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future”, p.28, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• These monster cities we live in today are blights of modern society. They will certainly give way to planned cities interlinked to the countryside. Everybody will live with the natural advantages of the country and the cultural associations of the town.

  James P. Cannon

  Country, Cities, Giving

  "What Socialist America Will Look Like". Lecture at the SWP’s Friday Night Forum in Los Angeles on January 23, 1953. The Militant, www.marxists.org. July 27, 1953.

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