Society Quotes

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.

Jean Cocteau, Journey to Freedom (1969)

They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.

Kahil Gibran, Spirits Rebellious

The parent who gets down on the floor to play with a child on Christmas Day is usually doing a most remarkable thing - - Something seldom repeated during the rest of the year. These are, after all, busy parents committed to their work or their success in the larger society, and they do not have much left - Over time in which to play with their children.

Brian Sutton - Smith

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Krishnamurti

Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned.... That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions.

Walter Lippmann

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.

Wystan Hugh Auden

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

Dietrich Bonhoeffe

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson

What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?

Irv Kupcinet

In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create but by what we refuse to destroy.

John C. Sawhill

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

Aristotle, Politics

We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good, but people are beginning to suspect we have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty.

Euell Gibbons

Educate your children to self - Control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.

Benjamin Franklin

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

William Makepeace Thackery

Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without.

John Stuart Mill

Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.

John Dewey

Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising.

John Lah

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

A Bartlett Giamatti

I knew from the start if I left a woman I really loved - - The Great Society - - In order to fight that bitch of a war in Vietnam then I would lose everything at home. My hopes my dreams.

Lyndon B. Johnson

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life.

Jimmy Carte

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson

Let... others call me a hypocrite because I fired a gun in a moment of personal peril. I shall still be for strict gun control. But as long as authorities leave this society awash in drugs and guns, I will protect my family.

Carl T. Rowan, Jr.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Jessamyn West