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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• Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Despair, Acid, Form

  Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1989). “The trumpet of conscience”, HarperCollins

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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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• Loneliness is caused by an alienation from life. It is a loneliness from your real self.

  Maxwell Maltz

  Real, Loneliness, Self

  Maxwell Maltz (1989). “Psycho-Cybernetics”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

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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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• 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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• It's such a profound alienation for a person not to be at home in their own body.

  Marilyn Wann

  Self Esteem, Home, Profound

  "Is weight the new race?" by Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. July 8, 2006.

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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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• 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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• Alienation and loneliness plant the seeds for rebellion and consciousness.

  B. W. Powe

  Loneliness, Consciousness, Rebellion

  "Towards a Canada of Light". Book by B. W. Powe, 2006.

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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 produces eccentrics or revolutionaries.

  Jenny Holzer

  Outsiders, Revolutionary, Produce

  Jenny Holzer, Noemi Smolik (1996). “Jenny Holzer: writing”

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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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• There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.

  Roland Barthes

  Society, Way, Retreat

  "Political Culture and Public Opinion". Book by Roland Barthes, p.175, January 1, 1989.

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• Not knowing where your food comes from is a primary form of alienation.

  Allen Lacy

  Knowing, Form, Primaries

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• Whether I get on in the world is a question; but I certainly don't get on very well with the world.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Friendship, Success, World

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.9424, Delphi Classics

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

  Carrie P. Meek

  Abandonment

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• Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, People, Support

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.43, Routledge

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• I am too far away from what I love and my distance is without remedy.

  Albert Camus

  Distance, Far Away, Exile

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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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• There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.

  Eric Hoffer

  Littles, Cures

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