Society Quotes - Page 30

• Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Today, Crime, Victim

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure time for freedom than unconventionality does.

  George Bernard Shaw

  People, Doe, Leisure

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• Nay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by publick authority cannot be taken.

  Algernon Sidney

  Fall, Taken, Men

  Algernon Sidney (1805). “Discourses on Government”, p.431

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• In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.

  Mark Skousen

  Rights, Long, Individual

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• Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

  George Soros

  Believe, Enemy, Laissez Faire Capitalism

  "The Capitalist Threat". www.theatlantic.com. February 1997.

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• As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Caring, Hands, Invisible Hand

  Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1995). “Memoirs”, McClelland & Stewart Limited

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• Asked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether.

  Frank Zappa

  Believe, Average, What If

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• We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound, the spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.

  Abraham Flexner

  Science, Self, Play

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• The choice so often these days is to believe something that seems insane or go insane.

  Robert Breault

  Believe, Choices, Insane

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• Is it my imagination, or does shipping and handling settle a box of crackers more than it used to?

  Robert Breault

  Imagination, Doe, Shipping

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• Nowadays you envy a manic-depressive. Half the time he's happy, the other half he's right.

  Robert Breault

  Envy, Half, Depressive

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• If you think that someone is out to steal everything you have, you're either paranoid or a member of the middle class.

  Robert Breault

  Thinking, Class, Stealing

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• I believe... that security declines as security machinery expands.

  E. B. White

  Believe, Decline, Machinery

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• The West has enough technology, enough science, enough affluence, enough money, but something of the inner is missing. There is no peace, no silence, no joy, no bliss, no meditativeness, no experience of godliness.

  Rajneesh

  Technology, Missing, Silence

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• Those persons who are burning to display heroism may rest assured that the course of social evolution will offer them every opportunity.

  Havelock Ellis

  Opportunity, Heroism, Burning

  Havelock Ellis (1912). “The Task of Social Hygiene”

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• It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

  Moliere

  Trying, Reform, World

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• I think societal instinct much deeper than sex instinct — and societal repression much more devastating.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Sex, Thinking, Instinct

  D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.99, Cambridge University Press

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• We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds.

  Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

  Lazy, Mind, World

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• [The] men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Men, Growth, Business Success

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• I am not quite sure what the advantage is in having a few more dollars to spend if the air is too dirty to breathe, the water too polluted to drink, the commuters are losing out in the struggle to get in and out of the city, the streets are filthy, and the schools so bad that the young perhaps wisely stay away, and the hoodlums roll citizens for some of the dollars they saved in the tax cut.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Dirty, Struggle, School

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• I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Names, Titles, Aristocracy

  Oliver Goldsmith (1819). “Citizen of the World”, p.238

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• Everything is for the eye these days - TV, Life, Look, the movies. Nothing is just for the mind. The next generation will have eyeballs as big as cantaloupes and no brain at all.

  Fred Allen

  Eye, Brain, Mind

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• Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.

  Jan Struther

  Running, Feelings, Mind

  Jan Struther (1942). “Mrs. Miniver”, p.88, Prabhat Prakashan

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• It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake.

  Norman Douglas

  Issues, Political, Age

  Norman Douglas (1922). “Alone”

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• The twentieth century seems afflicted by a gigantic... power failure. Powerlessness and the sense of powerlessness may be the environmental disease of the age.

  Russell Baker

  Environmental, Age, May

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