Societies Quotes

China and the U.S. are two societies with very different attitudes towards opinion and criticism. In China, I am constantly under surveillance. Even my slightest, most innocuous move can - and often is - censored by Chinese authorities.

Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.

It is also, I would guess, a universal that in all societies people value respectability granted to them.

There is very strong historical data that suggests the way societies grow is by making large, long-term investments.

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.

Of course, there can be serious injustices within free societies.

Those who have heard or read anything from me on the subject, know that one of the principal points insisted on is, the forming of societies or any other artificial combinations IS the first, greatest, and most fatal mistake ever committed by legislators and by reformers.

Although images of perfection in people's personal lives can cause unhappiness, images of perfect societies - utopian images - can cause monstrous evil. In fact, forcefully changing society to conform to societal images was the greatest cause of evil in the twentieth century.

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