Society Quotes
A first-generation fortune is the most likely to be given away, but once a fortune is inherited it's less likely that a very high percentage will go back to society.
– Bill Gates
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It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.
– W. H. Auden
For African American ideals, The Promised Land is not a land to be reclaimed after hundreds, or even thousands, of years, citing God as the real estate agent. The Promised Land doesn't echo the injustices of the past by, in part, replicating them upon others. The Promised Land is the creation of a just society with an appreciation for the diversity of all humanity and equality for all.
– Joseph Anderson
Harvard University, according to the directory of the American Society of Colleges and Universities, is a type of weevil.
– Dave Barry
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I've never believed much in that holding hands kind of love. I've always thought that love is about two different personalities trying to confront life, trying to make sense of their responsibilities, to themselves, to each other, and to the wider society.
– Alan Bates
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The concept of the good ol' days must be one of our society's biggest delusions, top reasons for depression, as well as most often used excuse for lack of success.
– Bo Bennett
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We stand in the shadow of Jefferson who believed that a society founded upon the rule of law and liberty was dependent upon public education and the diffusion of knowledge.
– Matt Blunt
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– Kjell Magne Bondevik
The most important lesson of American history is the promise of the unexpected. None of our ancestors would have imagined settling way over here on this unknown continent. So we must continue to have society that is hospitable to the unexpected, which allows possibilities to develop beyond our own imaginings.
– Daniel J. Boorstin
It's a crazy society now. It's the richest society ever and yet people are overworked. There's more unemployment, more crime, more confusion, more broken marriages. This is a breakdown. Every culture breaks down. Every society breaks down, whether it's Rome, Spain, the British Empire. The people in charge probably didn't get it until they had their heads chopped off.
– Jerry Brown
Havel was influenced by the fact that the Communist system considered itself to be the ultimate in scientific rationalism. Communism was touted from the beginning as a scientific way of looking at the problems of society. It wasn't. It probably never could be. It represented an effort to control society with a philosophy that was antithetical to freedom and democracy.
– George E. Brown, Jr.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roarI love not Man the less, but Nature more.
– Lord Byron
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In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.
– Ella Baker
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The reforms that we are to undergo this year - many of which extremely difficult - serve the interest of modernizing our society and economy. No one will ever gain if Romania joins the European Union still unprepared. In the long run, our goal is to transform the European integration effort into tangible benefits in the living standard of each and every Romanian citizen.
– Traian Basescu
– Vissarion Belinsky
The problem of dealing with conflict on a large, sort of society-wide scale, is a bit analogous to building a complex aircraft. You need a whole lot of different parts. You can't fly an airplane with just a jet engine, you need wings, you needs control surfaces, you need avionics, you need a seat for the pilot, fuel tanks, all sorts of stuff.
– Guy Burgess
We can't make the whole system with which society deals with conflict perfect. Can't design it. But we can identify pathological dynamics that make it especially bad. And some of these we know how to fix. There are terrible conflicts that arise out of misunderstandings and people just think someone else is doing something terrible when they're not, and we know how to fix that.
– Guy Burgess
American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.
– Noam Chomsky
Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.
– Noam Chomsky
– Robert Cecil
Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world.
– Thomas Chalmers
– Jean Chretien
In 1976 I was appointed an American Cancer Society Research Professor and in 1986, Distinguished Professor. The works recognized by this Nobel Prize are clearly a group effort of achievement as may be seen from the names associated with our publications on EGF. They share in this honor.
– Stanley N. Cohen
I think Harry and jazz go together for a lot of reasons. For the most part, he listens to artists who had to struggle to make their music, whether because of their personal demons and ills or those of society. They had to fight to make their music, and that is the bridge to Harry. In his own way, he has to fight to make his music.
– Michael Connelly
It seems that in a lot of foreign countries the crime novel is placed on a higher shelf and recognized more as a method of holding up a mirror to society. In the US there is more of a sense that these are entertainments or puzzles first, social investigations or character studies second. Consequently, when I have traveled overseas the questions I tend to get from media and people at book signings tend to be more in regard to the deeper themes and subjects of the books.
– Michael Connelly
Advertising is an instrument in the hands of the people who use it. If evil men use advertising for base purposes, then evil can result. If honest men use advertising to sell an honest product with honest enthusiasm, then positive good for our kind of capitalistic society can result.
– John W. Crawford
– Richard J. Daley
You know, my hair is very upsetting to people, but it's upsetting on purpose. It is important to look old so that the young will not be afraid of dying. People don't like old women. We don't honor age in our society, and we certainly don't honor it in Hollywood.
– Tyne Daly
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– Clifton Daniel
I had quite a repressed childhood. I was born in '55 and by the mid '60s it was still very much a sort of '50s mentality there, being so remote. I just found it stifling. And at some point - I think I was about 12 - I came to the conclusion that it was going to be difficult to survive that little society somehow intact.
– Judy Davis
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What's going on in the world at the moment is very tragic, and that's really the only word for the situation. Nobody is being helped out by this at all. I think the best thing that people can do at the moment here, in the West and, particularly, in America, is to carry on living their lives as normal. And the best way to fight the kind of seemingly invisible enemy is to fight it by functioning as a democratic society, which is what they're seeking to destroy.
– Bruce Dickinson
What we really want to do is to be left alone. We don't want Negroes around. We don't need Negroes around. We're not asking - you know, we don't want to have them, you know, for our culture. We simply want our own country and our own society. That's in no way exploitive at all. We want our own society, our own nation.
– David Duke
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If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together.
– Rita Dove
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– Max Eastman
– Nelson Eddy
Was I gung-ho about changing society when I was 18? I don't know about that. When you're 18, you're really into yourself and what's happening to your body. But I definitely had some ideas. This malaise is not confined to America either. I spotted that same attitude in kids in Eastern Europe before the fall of communism.
– Ben Folds
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