Alienation Quotes

• The number one problem in our world is alienation, rich versus poor, black versus white, labor versus management, conservative versus liberal, East versus West . . . But Christ came to bring about reconciliation and peace.

  Billy Graham

  Our World, White, Numbers

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• We have to heal our wounded world. The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment.

  Michael Jackson

  Healing, People, Despair

  "Michael Jackson, death by showbusiness" by Mick Brown, www.telegraph.co.uk. June 27, 2009.

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• The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society.

  Karl Marx

  Men, Evil, Capitalist

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• The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.

  Pope John Paul II

  Country, Socialist Countries, Historical

  Pope John Paul II (1996). “The Encyclicals of John Paul II”, Our Sunday Visitor (IN)

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• There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Philosophy, Thinking, Everyday

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• Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Intervention

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.85, Harvard University Press

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• You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?

  Charlie Kaufman

  Lonely, Dna, Adaptation

  Charlie Kaufman (2001*). “Adaptation: Screenplay”

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• A hermit is simply a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself.

  Will Cuppy

  Civilization, Hermits, Persons

  Will Cuppy (1929). “How to be a Hermit: Or, A Bachelor Keeps House”, Castrovilli Giuseppe

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• Marks of Identity is, among other things, the expression of the process of alienation in a contemporary intellectual with respect to his own country.

  Juan Goytisolo

  Respect, Country, Expression

  "Understanding Juan Goytisolo". Book by Randolph D. Pope, 1995.

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• He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Terrible, Dehumanization

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.344, e-artnow

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• You can't put abandonment and alienation under arrest.

  Carrie P. Meek

  Abandonment

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• I never understood alienation. Alienation from what? You have to want to be part of something in order to feel alienated from it.

  Boyd Rice

  Crazy, Order, Mad

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• Idealization of a group is a natural consequence of separation from the group; in other words, it is a by-product of alienation.

  Paula Gunn Allen

  Groups, Outsiders, Separation

  Paula Gunn Allen (2015). “The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions”, p.107, Open Road Media

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• Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap.

  Alan Watts

  Intellectual, Inability, Accepting

  Alan W. Watts, Daniel Pinchbeck (2013). “The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness”, p.112, New World Library

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• The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation

  Terence McKenna

  Dmt, Mind Blowing, Cost

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• Alienation is perhaps the most effective tool of control in America, and every reminder of our real connectedness weakens that tool.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Real, America, Tools

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• To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.

  Eric Hoffer

  Reality, Men, Despair

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Peace dies when the framework is ripped apart. When there is no longer a place that is yours in the world. When you know no longer where your friend is to be found.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  World, Found, Framework

  Antoine de Saint Exupery (1942). “Flight to Arras”

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• We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

  Pema Chodron

  Truth, Fear, Heart

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• We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Company, Persons

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• Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total… Man has created a world of man-made things as it never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. The more powerful and gigantic the forces are which he unleashes, the more powerless he feels himself as a human being. He is owned by his creations, and has lost ownership of himself.

  Erich Fromm

  Powerful, Men, Machines

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• Without alienation, there can be no politics.

  Arthur Miller

  Politics

  1988 In Marxism Today, Jan.

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• I guess lyrically they're similar because they're talking about escaping the kind of misery that likes company. 'The Last One Alive,' for me, is very simple. It's just about alienation, really, that causes anger.

  Jon Crosby

  Anger, Simple, Escaping

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• Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.

  R. D. Laing

  Fate, Destiny, Diversity

  R.D Laing (1967). “The Politics of Experience”

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• Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression's actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Depression, Unique, Essence

  Jonathan Franzen (2007). “How to Be Alone: Essays”, p.87, Macmillan

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