Quotes on Society

The problems that exist in this world can not be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

Civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service.

Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

If human beings were shown what they're really like, they'd either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.

You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations. When there is order in the nations, there will peace in the world.

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.

A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.