“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.”
Topic
society
951 quotes
Quotes, most loved first
“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”
“The Internet: transforming society and shaping the future through chat.”
“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”
“If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.”
“Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.”
“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
“The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.”
“Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.”
“To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.”
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.”
“The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.”
“A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.”
“One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.”
“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
“There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.”
“I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.”
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
“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.”
“Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.”
“In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.”
“Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”
“Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.”
“If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”