There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
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.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Every day’s a perfect gift of time for us to use. Hours waiting to be filled in any way we choose. Each morning brings a quiet hope that rises with the sun. Each evening brings the sweet content that comes with work well done.
—Unknown
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Travelling makes a man wiser, but less happy.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Man is a social animal, formed to please and enjoy in society.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
No bees, no honey; no work, no money.
—Common Proverb
Social problems can no longer be solved by class warfare any more than international problems can be solved by wars between nations. Warfare is negative and will sooner or later lead to destruction, while good will and cooperation are positive and supply the only safe basis for building a better future.
—Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) Norwegian Explorer, Biologist, Oceanographer
Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when they are old.
—English Proverb
Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
—Samuel Butler
Only the educated are free.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work—declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life, nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line and say that society can never prosper but must always be bankrupts, until every man does that which he was created to do.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness—a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor’s wife.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
Institutions—government, churches, industries, and the like—have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom; and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Philosopher, Political Leader
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
—Unknown
Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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