Society Quotes - Page 4

• The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.

  Gustavo Gutiérrez

  Inspirational, Change, Order

  89 Copy quote

• It is a fact that unless children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they, and the society which they constitute or control, will go to destruction. Consequently, when a state resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools and other literary institutions, it virtually resolves on self-destruction.

  Charles Hodge

  God, Education, Religious

  Charles Hodge (1871). “Systematic Theology”, p.353

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• I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Money, Men, White Man

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• When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

  Theodore Dalrymple

  Liars, Lying, People

  "Our Culture, What’s Left Of It". Interview with Jamie Glazov, archive.frontpagemag.com. August 31, 2005.

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• To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment....would result in the demolition of society.

  Karl Polanyi

  Fate, Directors, Environment

  34 Copy quote

• A lot of people think that the music was responsible for a lot of changes in the Sixties, but I think the music came out of it. The music wouldnt have happened without the social changes.

  Steve Winwood

  Change, Music, Thinking

  23 Copy quote

• You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about.

  Jane Elliott

  Fear, Power, People

  348 Copy quote

• Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.

  David Ricardo

  Happiness, Happy, Country

  David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1846). “The Works of David Ricardo ...”, p.474

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• I want people to see the truth... regardless of who they are...
  because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a
  public.

  Chelsea Manning

  Truth, People, Decision

  "Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed". www.wired.com. July 13, 2011.

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• In America, we debate everything except capitalism. If there's an institution in your society that's above criticism, you're giving it a free pass to indulge all of its weaknesses and darker tendencies.

  Richard D. Wolff

  Dark, America, Giving

  "The Progressive Interview". Interview with Ed Rampell, www.democracyatwork.info. April 10, 2014.

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• I am an observer of life, a non-participant who takes no sides. I am in the regimented society, but not of it.

  Moondog

  Life, Musician, Sides

  41 Copy quote

• Don't be afraid of failure. That's not an easy lesson for teenagers - especially teenage girls - to learn. Our society sends us a lot of messages that imply we're supposed to be ashamed when we fall short. But I think we should be throwing each other failure parties!

  Reshma Saujani

  Encouraging, Girl, Teenage

  Source: on.mtv.com

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• So, "normal" is really what society dictates as normal and if we're born in that world, we would see that as normal. But if you think about it for a second, is it really?

  Jacque Fresco

  Real, Thinking, World

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it.

  John Ehrlichman

  Health, White, America

  50 Copy quote

• Our survival as a human community may depend as much upon our nurture of love in infancy and childhood as upon the protection of our society from external threats.

  Selma Fraiberg

  Love, Childhood, Community

  Selma Fraiberg (1977). “Every child's birthright: in defense of mothering”, Basic Books (AZ)

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• When the family is destroyed, society eventually disintegrates.

  Billy Graham

  Family, Baptists, Pastor

  Twitter post from Jul 12, 2013

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• Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.

  Ai Weiwei

  Change, Thinking, Chinese

  Interview with Katie Hill, www.tate.org.uk. October 12, 2010.

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• To meditate for world peace, to pray for a better world, and to work for social justice and environmental protection while continuing to purchase the flesh, milk, and eggs of horribly abused animals exposes a disconnect that is so fundamental that it renders our efforts absurd, hypocritical, and doomed to certain failure.

  Will Tuttle

  Prayer, Failure, Hypocrite

  Will Tuttle (2007). “The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony”, p.197, Lantern Books

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• There is no denying that consideration of others is worthwhile and that our happiness is inextricably bound up with the happiness of others. There is no denying that if society suffers, we ourselves suffer, and the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill-will, the more miserable we become. We can reject religion, ideology, received wisdom, but we cannot escape the need for love and compassion.

  Dalai Lama

  Love, Happiness, Buddhist

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• The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Nature, Children, Accountability

  118 Copy quote

• To be social is to be forgiving.

  Robert Frost

  Forgiveness, Forgiving, Injustice

  Robert Frost (2016). “The Letters of Robert Frost”, p.316, Harvard University Press

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• Society is a republic. When an individual tries to lift themselves above others, they are dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or slander.

  Victor Hugo

  Trying, Republic, Individual

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• A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Original Thought, Literature, Originality

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.20, Knopf

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• If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Science, Men

  "Life Without Principle" (1863)

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