quotations about society
In society men protect themselves by protecting one another.
EMPEROR FOHI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.
OSCAR WILDE
An Ideal Husband
If you really wish to become a man of society, you must learn first either to be an imbecile or to hold your tongue.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate oddfellow society.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
What a glorious time it will be when Society discovers that most of the punishment it inflicts ought not to have been inflicted on its children, but on itself.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Society: The Perfect Mother", Reactions and Other Essays Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitude of Mind That Find Expression In Our Individual Qualities
Gold is the key to society; but poverty its barrier.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
No entrance without any exit, no possible society without a spacious graveyard.
ERNST BLOCH
The Principle of Hope
Side by side and always tired
All for one and no-one hired
All that's left is love inspired
Low society
HEAVEN 17
"Low Society"
Without some portion of moral virtues, not even thieves can maintain society.
J. HARRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Were it not for some small remainders of piety and virtue which are yet left scattered among mankind, human society would in a short space disband and run into confusion, and the earth would grow wild and become a forest.
JOHN TILLOTSON
"The Advantages of Religion to Societies", The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson
I suppose Society is wonderfully delightful.
To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
OSCAR WILDE
A Woman of No Importance
It may be that our society is only passing through a period of ugly transition, but the present evil has its root deep down in the social organization, and springs from a diseased public opinion.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
"A Chapter of Erie", North American Review, July 1869
Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
EDWIN H. LAND
testimony, The Public Television Act of 1967: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications
Society is immoral and immortal; it can afford to commit any kind of folly, and indulge in any sort of vice; it cannot be killed, and the fragments that survive can always laugh at the dead.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure -- but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which, turn in turn wounded and humiliated one by the other, intercross, come into collision, and on the morrow expiate the triumph of the eve in the bitterness of defeat. To live alone, to remain unjostled in this miserable struggle, where for a moment one draws the eyes of the spectators, to be crushed a moment later -- this is what is called being a nonentity, having no existence. Poor humanity!
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
Society is a chain of obligations, and its links must support each other;
The branch cannot but wither, that is cut from the parent vine.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
A participation in rights and advantages forms the bond of political society; an institution prior, in the intention of nature, to the families and individuals from whom it is constituted.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Society therefore is as ancient as the world.
VOLTAIRE
A Philosophical Dictionary