I think God’s going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion; all his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contented and contenting.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Two such as you with such a master speed cannot be parted nor be swept away from one another once you are agreed that life is only life forevermore together wing to wing and oar to oar.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
You may live in the fashionable quarter of town, but there is a dark slum somewhere on your property.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
You can tell all you need to about a society from how it treats animals and beaches.
—Frank Deford (1938–2017) American Sportswriter
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 odd-fellow society.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
—Unknown
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
—Unknown
If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.
—Unknown
The uprooting of human beings from the land, the concentration in cities, the breakdown of the authority of the family, of tradition, and of moral conventions, the complexity and the novelty of modern life, and finally the economic insecurity of our industrial system have called into being the modern social worker. They perform a function in modern society which is not a luxury but an absolute necessity.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
The best friend is likely to acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.
—Robert Half
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
Besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society, as the costliest addition to its rule and its credit.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
—Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese Author, Philologist
It is quite possible to work without results, but never will there be results without work.
—Unknown
Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.
—Emily Bronte (1818–48) English Novelist, Poet
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
In this democracy there are no titles. Yet there is no land on the face of the earth where titles are more freely bestowed-or arrogated. If a man isn’t known as Judge or Colonel or Doctor or Professor or General or Governor or Senator or Congressman or Ambassador or Secretary or Captain or Chief, then the chances are that he is described as some kind of a king. We have our Tobacco Kings, our Steel Kings, our Lumber Kings, our Chemical Kings, our Automobile Kings, our Coal Kings, our Traction Kings, and doubtless we will shortly have our Bootlegger Kings.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
To train and educate the rising generation will at all times be the first object of society, to which every other will be subordinate.
—Robert Owen (1771–1858) British Social Reformer, Philosopher
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Our modern society is engaged in polishing and decorating the cage in which man is kept imprisoned.
—Swami Nirmalananda (1863–1938) Indian Hindu Monk
The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Self-recognition is necessary to know one’s road, but, knowing the road, the price of the mistakes and perils is worth paying. The following of that road will be all the discipline one needs. Discipline does not mean being molded by outside forces, but sticking to one’s road against the forces that would deflect or bury the soul. People speak of finding one.
—Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American Writer, Scholar
Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.
—George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish Author, Poet, Editor, Critic, Painter
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890?
—Stephen Sondheim (b.1930) American Musician, Composer, Songwriter
A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
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
A child miseducated is a child lost.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
There exists a strict relation between the class of power and the exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled, or filling from the first. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. It is virtue gone to seed; a kind of posthumous honor; a hall of the past. Great men are not commonly in its halls: they are absent in the field: they are working, not triumphing Fashion is made up of their children.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something. You disturb the air as you go forward, you disturb the dust, the ground. You trample upon things. When a whole society moves forward, this trampling is on a much bigger scale; and each thing that you disturb, each vested interest which you want to remove, stands as an obstacle.
—Indira Gandhi (1917–84) Indian Head of State
So far as a person thinks; they are free.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
No man needs sympathy because he has to work. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.
—Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British Head of State
Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which is never advisable.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Society undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet; he has a fine Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist