society

We are only beginning to understand on how subtle a communication system the functioning of an advanced industrial society is basedöa communications system which we call the market and which turns out to be a more efficient mechanism for digesting dispersed information than any that man has deliberately designed.

—Hayek, Friedrich August von

All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.

—Jevons,William Stanley

Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

Literature is conscious mythology: as society develops, its mythical stories become structural principles of story-telling, its mythical concepts, sun-gods and the like, become habits of metaphoric thought. In a fully mature literary tradition the writerenters intoa structure of traditional stories and images.

—Frye, Northrop

   Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.

—Doctorow, E(dgar) L(awrence)

Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well onpaper, suchasnational budgets or industrial balance sheets.

—Weil, Simone

I hope†to build a society of opportunity. By opportunity,Imeananopensocietyöa society inwhich what people fulfil will depend upon their talent, their application, and their good fortune.What people achieve should depend particularly on those things, and Ihope increasingly inthefuturethatthat will bethe case.

—Major,John

L'architecture est le miroir me"  me de la vie. Il n'est que de jeter les yeux sur des e¤  difices pour sentir la pre¤  sence du passe¤  , l'esprit d'un lieu; ils sont le reflet de la socie¤  te¤  . Architecture is the very mirror of life.You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.

—Pei, I(eoh) M(ing)

1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. 2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts. 3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gentlyas you move. 4.Go very light on vices such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain't restful. 5. Avoid running at all times. 6. Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you.

—Paige, Satchel (Leroy Robert)

   Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one anotheröonly in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.

—Parry, Sir Charles Hubert Hastings

What I did that was new was to prove that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular, historical phases in the development of production; that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; and that dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

—Marx, Karl Heinrich

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.

—Wordsworth,William

There is a growing division in our comparatively prosperous society between the South and the North and Midlands, which are ailing, that cannot be allowed to continue. There is a general sense of tension. The old English way might be to quarrel and have battles, but they were friendly. I can only describe as wicked the hatred that has been introduced, and which is to be found among different types of people today. Not merelyan intellectual but a moral effort isrequired toget rid of it.

—Stockton

   Thetechnologyofdecentralization can bethesaviouror assassin of contemporary and future society. The role of architects may be uncertain, but the role of architecture is not. In order to look forward society may sometimes haveto look back.This it should do inorder to learnfrom previous mistakes and oversights and to preclude similar eventualities in the future. This does not imply historical dependency, as some would assert. The symbiosis of architecture and technology should prevail, engendered by honesty and integrity. The task will not be easy.

—Murphy, Ian

The rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension, of the society.On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.

—Smith, Adam

My definition of a free society is a society in which it is safe to be unpopular.

—Stevenson, Adlai E(wing)

During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideals of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hopeto live for, and toseerealized.But My Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

—Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla

Chacun peut e¤  prouver en soi ce double mouvement: de¤ s ir de s'inte¤  grer a'   la socie¤  te¤  , besoin de se re¤  aliser par soi-me"  me en dehors d'elle. We all have this double impulse within ourselves: the desire to integrate into society, and the need to fulfil ourselves outside of it, through our own efforts.

—Sarraute, Nathalie

Why, as civilization spreads, do outstanding men become fewer? Why, when attainments are the lot of all, do great intellectual talents become rarer? Why, when there are no longer lower classes, are there no longer upper classes? Why, when knowledge of how to rule reaches the masses, is there a lackof great abilities in the direction of society? America clearly poses these questions.But who can answer them?

—Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Cle¤  rel de

   It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in our society today† This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

—Asimov, Isaac

The labor of women inthehouse, certainly, enables men to produce more wealth than they otherwise could; and in this way [they] are economic factors in society. But so are horses.

—Gilman and Charlotte Perkins Stetson

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary rule of another man.

—Locke,John

Lenin was right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning theexisting basisofsociety thanto debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces ofeconomic lawontheside ofdestruction, and doesit in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.

—Keynes (of Tilton),John Maynard, 1st Baron

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitraryand inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

—Keynes (of Tilton),John Maynard, 1st Baron

It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls. Ayouthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de dire: 'Ceci est a'   moi'et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la socie¤  te¤   civile. The first person who fenced in a piece of land, ventured to say: 'This is mine,'and found others simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.

—Rousseau,JeanJacques

I hardly know which is the greater pest to society: a paternal Government; that is to say, a prying meddlesome Government, which intrudes itself into every part of human life and which thinks that it can do everything for everybody better than anyone can do for himself, or a careless, lounging Government, which suffers grievances, such as it could at once remove, to grow and multiply, and which to all complaint and remonstrance has only one answer,'We must let things taketheir course, we must let things find theirown level.'

—1st Baron

   Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

—Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans

Hablando siempre y siempre contando chismes y haciendo chistes y siempre y tambie¤  n filosofando o estetizando o moralizando, siempre: la cuestio¤  n era hacer ver como que no trabaja¤  bamos porque en La Habana, Cuba, esa es la  u¤ nica manera de ser gente bien. Talking all the time and telling jokes or gossiping all the time and always and also philosophizing or aestheticizingor moralizing, but always: thething wasto make it look like we didn't have to work because in Havana,Cuba, this is the only way to be high society. . .

—Cabrera Infante, Guillermo

Only in a higher phase of communist society†can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety, and society inscribe on its banners,'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!' See Bakunin 53:25.

—Marx, Karl Heinrich

If the idea of society were extinguished in individual minds and the beliefs, traditions and aspirations of the group were no longer felt and shared by individuals, society would die.We can say of it what we just said of divinity: it is real only in so far as it has a place in the human consciousness, and this place is whatever we may give it.

—Durkheim, EŁ  mile

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

—Illich, Ivan

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each canbecomeaccomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing todayand another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening or criticize after dinner, just as I desire, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

—Marx, Karl Heinrich

The product oftheartist hasbecome less importantthan the fact of the artist.We wish to absorb this person.We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic.Inour society thisperson ismuchmore important than anything he might create.

—Mamet, David Alan

I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups† Literary intellectuals at one poleöat the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension.

—Snow, C(harles) P(ercy), 1st Baron

No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey.

—Mills, C(harles) Wright

In the affluent society, no useful distinction can be made between luxuries and necessities.

—Galbraith,John Kenneth

   We have to acknowledge that the thing we call 'literature' ismorepluralisticnow, just associetyoughtto be. The melting pot never worked.

—Morrison,Toni Chloe Anthony ne¤  e Wofford

Architecture cannot be understood without some knowledge of the society it serves.

—Casson, Sir Hugh Maxwell

It would seem that Americans have a kind of resistance to looking closelyat society.

—Trillin, Calvin Marshall

   Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm, that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this great epoch in our lives; that like Lot's wife, I still turned and looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was leaving. It was not the hardships of an emigrant's life I dreaded. I could bear mere physical privations philosophically enough; it was the loss of society in which I had moved, the want of congenial minds, of persons engaged in congenial pursuits, that made me so reluctant to respond to my husband's call.

—Moodie, Susanna ne¤  e Strickland

   L'homme est ne¤   pour la socie¤  te¤  ; se¤  parez-le, isolez-le, ses ide¤  es se de¤  suniront, son caracte'  re se tournera, mille affections ridicules s'e¤  le'  veront dans son coeur; des 274 pense¤  es extravagantes germeront dans son esprit, comme les ronces dans une terre sauvage. Man is born to live in society: separate him, isolate him, and his ideas disintegrate, his character changes, a thousand ridiculous affectations rise up in his heart; extreme thoughts take hold in his mind, like the brambles in a wild field.

—Diderot, Denis

Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

When you see how in this happy country the lowest and poorest member of society takes an interest in all public affairs; when you see how high and low, rich and poor, are all willing to declare their feelings and convictions; when you see howa carter, a common sailor, a beggar is still a man, nay, even more, an Englishmanöthen, believe me, you find yourself very differently affected fromtheexperienceyoufeelwhenstaring atoursoldiers drilling in Berlin.

—Moritz, Karl Philipp

Cyberspace is the funhouse mirror of our own society.

—Sterling, Bruce

Sociology was born of the modern ardor to improve society.

—Small, AlbionW

Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.

—Book of Common Prayer

Social life ismutual negotiation and society, social order, relies on this mutual negotiation between individuals; this represents both creed and particular reality in American society. In no other society is this creed and the corresponding reality as prominent as the United States.

—Mu«  nch, Richard Friedrich

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there isno place for industry; becausethe fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

—Hobbes,Thomas

Our noble society for providing the infant negroes inthe West Indies with flannel waistcoats and moral pocket handkerchiefs.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Aworkof art has no importance whatever to society.It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me. 606

—Nabokov,Vladimir

We consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited poweröno leader, faction, party or 'class', no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade, or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organisations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole.

—Oakeshott, Michael Joseph

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.

—Thatcher, Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farmyard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves, and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.

—Shaw, George Bernard

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would!

—Hardy,Thomas

Why have women Passion, intellect, moral activityöthese threeöand a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised?

—Nightingale, Florence

Writers are much more esteemed in Russia, they playa much larger part in society thantheydo in theWest.The advantage of not being free is that people listen to you.

—Snow, C(harles) P(ercy), 1st Baron

   As long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life; nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it.

—Tawney, R(ichard) H(enry)

No wonder the really powerful men in our society, whether politicians or scientists, hold writers in contempt.Theydoit becausetheyget no evidence from modern literature that anybody is thinking about any significant question.

—Bellow, Saul

In every case, agricultural as well as manufacturing profits are lowered bya rise in the price of raw produce, if it be accompanied bya rise of wages_ The natural tendency of profits istofall; for inthe progress of society and wealth, the additional quantity of food required is obtained by the sacrifice of more and more labour.

—Ricardo, David

Every individual†intends only his own gain, and he is in this as in many other cases led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention† By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good.

—Smith, Adam

The function of literature through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and thehigh authorityof theself in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.

—Trillin, Calvin Marshall

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

—Walker, Alice Malsenior

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in a society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. That conduct consists†in each person bearing his share of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injuryand molestation.

—Mill,John Stuart

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman.

—Paley, Grace ne¤  e  Goodside

'In Scotland,' Tavish muttered, picking up my bags,'the women dothehod carrying whilewe blokesretiretothe nearest puböto deliberate upon the role of labour in society.'

—Neville, Katherine

Ayear passed; a year of art and dissipationöone part art, two parts dissipation.We mounted and descended at pleasure the rounds of society's ladder.

—Moore, George

A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion.

—Lewis, C(live) S(taples)

The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.

—Nozick, Robert

If the war didn't happen to kill you it was bound to start you thinking. After that unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn't go on regarding society as something eternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid.You knew it was just a balls-up. 628

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children.

—Wordsworth,William

Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace; and America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

—Arnold, Matthew

A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents onwhom hehas a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is.

—Malthus,Thomas Robert

For too long, society has resembled a pyramid that has been turned upside down and made to rest on its summit. I have replaced it on its base.

—LouisNapoleon Bonaparte

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilised.

—Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills

I thought that writing a detective story would be a wonderful apprenticeship because, whatever people tell you, a crime novel is not easy to write well. As I continued with my craft I became increasingly fascinated by the form and realized that you can use the formula to say something true about men and women and the society in which they live.

—Baroness

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

—Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl

Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude.

—Marvell, Andrew

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

—Washington Bailey

Society is composed of two large classes; those who have more dinners than appetites, and those with more appetites than dinners.

—Chamfort, Se¤  bastien-Roch Nicolas

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

—Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills

Society is indeed a contract†it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

—Burke, Edmund

Society needs first of all to be free from meddlersöthat is, to be let alone.

—Sumner,William Graham

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little listöI've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground, And whonever would be missedö whonever would be missed! There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographsö All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs.

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that heshould retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that he should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a handsome establishment by marriage. Society does not see, otherwise, what he has to do with marriage. Bleak House

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

La socie¤  te¤   ne doit rien exiger de celui qui n'attend rien d'elle. Society should not ask anything of the person who expects nothing from society.

—Samuelson, Sir Sydney

A society that admires its shock troops had better be bloody careful about where it's going.

—Le Carre¤  ,John pseudonym of  David John Moore Cornwell

History does not provide us with any instance of a society that repressed the economic liberties of the

—Kristol, Irving

The society that will organize production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of the state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.

—Engels, Friedrich

The Chens had been living in the UK for four years, which was long enough to have lost their place in the society from which they had emigrated but not long enough to feel comfortable in the new.

—Mo,Timothy

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 roar: I love not man less, but nature more.

—Rochdale

A society†which is riven by a dozen oppositions along lines running in every direction, mayactually be in less danger of being torn with violence or falling to pieces than one split along just one line. For each new cleavage contributes to narrow the cross clefts, so that one might say that society is sewn together by its internal conflicts.

—Ross, Edward Alsworth

Whatevereachmancanseparatelydo, withouttrespassing upon others, he has a right to dofor himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all whichsociety, with all its combination of skill and force, can do in his favour.

—Burke, Edmund

These†society women never serve chilli.

—Rayburn, Sam(uel Taliaferro)

For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return.

—Milton,John

: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful! :To be in it is merelya bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

—Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills

The social scientist is in a difficult, if not impossible position.On the one hand there is the temptation to see all of societyas one's autobiography writ large, surely not the path to general truth.On the other hand, there is the attempt to be general and objective by pretending that one knows nothing about the experience of being human, forcing the investigator to pretend that people usually know and tell the truth about important issues, when we all know from our own lives how impossible that is.

—Lewontin, Richard Charles

The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.

—Oakeshott, Michael Joseph

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at negroes in every waking moment of their lives, to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

—King, Martin LutherJr

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.

—Shaw, George Bernard

   Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony or true delight?

—Milton,John

I suffer the anthropological malady diagnosed by Le¤  vi- Strauss inTristes tropiques: I find it much more difficult to suspend value judgments about the society in which I normally reside than I do abroad. It takes physical and cultural distance to gain moral detachment and political noncommitment. Relativism implies a solid measure of indifference.

—van den Berghe, Pierre L

Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity† Violence is a crime against humanity, for it destroysthevery fabric of society.On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence.

—PopeJohn Paul II originally Karol Jozef Wojtyla

There is no virtue in producing socially well adjusted members of society who are unemployed becausethey donot havetheskills.Noratthe otherextrememustthey be technically efficient robots.

—Baron

The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.

—Roosevelt,Theodore

I hope we're such a communal society that we'll always insist on sharing an adventure in the dark with strangers, no matter what the platform hardware. That's my wish and dreamöthat we never give up the communal experience.It starteda long timeagowith cavepaintings and I hope it doesn't go away.

—Spielberg, Steven

We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral societyönot a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State.

—Thatcher, Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness

Any society, so long as it is, or feels itselfto be, a working society, tends to invest in itself: a military society tends to become more military, a bureaucratic society more bureaucratic, a commercial society more commercial, as thestatus and profits of waroroffice orcommerceare enhanced by success, and institutions are framed to forward it. Therefore, when such a society is hit by a general crisis, it finds itself partly paralyzed by the structural weight of increased social investment. The dominant military or official or commercial classes cannot easily change their orientation: and their social dominance, and the institutions through which it is exercised, prevent other classes from securing power or changing policy.

—Glanton