Societies Quotes

Writers in repressive societies are considered dangerous. That's why so many of them are in jail.

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.

I believe that free and civilized societies do not hold prisoners incommunicado.

The constant effort towards population, which is found even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased.

Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.

Societies need rules that make no sense for individuals. For example, it makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But it makes all the difference when there are many cars!

The importance of the arts to the societies in which they thrive is well documented.

Societies depend on agreed rules.

Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.

They're such hierarchical things, film sets, they're sort of mini societies. Often they're incredibly political places.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

Families are the Nurseries of all Societies; and the First combinations of mankind.

A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society. A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side.

I'm a latecomer to the environmental issue, which for years seemed to me like an excuse for more government regulation. But I can see that in rich societies, voters are paying less attention to economic issues and more to issues of the spirit, including the environment.

The Jews are the living embodiment of the minority, the constant reminder of what duties societies owe their minorities, whoever they might be.

Trade creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty. And when that happens, societies stabilize and grow. And there is nothing like a stable society to fight terrorism and strengthen democracy, freedom and rule of law.

In most of history, societies have not been free. It's a very rare society that is free. The default condition of human societies is tyranny.

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Lest those islands still seem to you too remote in space and time to be relevant to our modern societies, just think about the risks... of our increasing globalization and increasing worldwide economic interdependence.

The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better.

I think some of the best reporters are the ones who can really illustrate the differences between societies, at the same time trying to connect the fact that there are a lot of shared values in addition to those differences.

Corporations are like countries now, there's a king, there are serfs, there's a court, basically everything but moats. They're feudal societies, and there are good ones and bad ones.

Among the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity, perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together, in religious societies, may not be one of the least.

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.

Terrorism takes us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.

There's a long record here of being wrong. There's a good reason for it. There are probably multiple reasons. Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don't have free and open societies.

All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women.

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.