Browsing Quotes With Tag: society (47)
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It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
Speaker: Niccolo MachiavelliPosted: 07 Jan 2015 at 9:24 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The decay and disintegration of this culture is astonishingly amusing if you’re emotionally detached from it. And I’ve always viewed it from a safe distance.
Speaker: George CarlinPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 11:14 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Speaker: Frederick DouglassPosted: 01 Jun 2014 at 10:06 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Privilege is when you think that something’s not a problem because it’s not a problem for you personally. If you’re part of a group that’s being catered to, you believe that’s the way it should be. It’s always been that way, why would that be a problem for anyone?
Speaker: David GaiderPosted: 25 Feb 2014 at 10:58 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
Speaker: Robert HeinleinPosted: 09 Feb 2014 at 5:55 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.Speaker: WordsworthSource: hopelesshappiness.comPosted: 09 Feb 2014 at 5:26 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The success of most people… almost always depends upon the favour and good opinion of their neighbors and equals; and without a tolerably regular conduct these can very seldom be obtained.
Speaker: Adam SmithSource: Predictably IrrationalPosted: 09 Feb 2014 at 5:15 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.
Speaker: RousseauSource: Du Contrat SocialPosted: 01 Mar 2010 at 5:29 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I don’t know what it is for me, but I sometimes feel as if I’m standing on a beach and there are waves smothering me – waves of advertisements for shit I don’t need, of profiles of people who’ve never done anything except be famous, of politicians mouthing platitudes, of hundred of TV channels showing nothing.
Speaker: Michael KamberSource: Shooting the TruthPosted: 26 Dec 2009 at 11:03 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I don’t know what it is for me, but I sometimes feel as if I’m standing on a beach and there are waves smothering me – waves of advertisements for shit I don’t need, of profiles of people who’ve never done anything except be famous, of politicians mouthing platitudes, of hundred of TV channels showing nothing.
Speaker: Michael KamberSource: Shooting the TruthPosted: 26 Dec 2009 at 11:01 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
She always wanted to have some Native American blood in her, just as everyone else does, because with that blood, she thought, stupidly, would come nobility, as would excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, or do anything she wanted. But instead she is Irish or possibly even Welsh but not in any tangible sense, and thus born without any sorrow in the lives of her recent ancestors, and so she had to smile gratefully and create good things from scratch or perhaps just save people from skin disease.
Speaker: Dave EggersSource: How We Are HungryPosted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:48 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Regardless of how many people still describe themselves as “Christian” in census surveys, we live in a primarily agnostic culture. Intellectually, agnosticism makes more sense. But the downside is that when people lose their convictions about the existence of God and Satan, they are less able to have personal perspectives on what’s right and what’s wrong. They are more open-minded about old taboos, but they’re also less able to see what’s obvious (and therefore susceptible to propaganda).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:26 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It’s one thing to realize that something is goofy, but it’s quite another to suggest that goofiness disqualifies its significance. If anything, it expands the significance, because the product becomes accessible to a wider audience (and to the kind of audience who would never look for symbolism on its own).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:15 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The single biggest influence on our lives was the inescapable sameness of everything, which is probably true for most generations.
Jefferson Morely makes a brilliant point about inflation in his 1988 essay “Twentysomething”: “For us, everything seemed normal. I remember wondering why people were surprised that prices were going up. I thought, That’s what prices did.” Consider that those sentiments come from a guy who was already in high school during Watergate – roughly the same year I was born. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever been legitimately shocked by anything, even as a third-grader in 1981. That was the year John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, and I wasn’t surprised at all (in fact, it seemed to me that presidential assassinations didn’t happen nearly as often as one would expect). From what I could tell, the world has always been a deeply underwhelming place; my generation inherited this paradigm, and it was perfectly fine with me (both then and now).Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:14 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Commercial success does not legitimize musical consequence, but it does legitimize cultural consequence.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:06 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities.
Speaker: Andrew CarnegiePosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 7:16 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
And what was money? It was merely a temptation to commit wrong. Rich people weren’t happy. They were generally miserable and usually confused. Most of the time they didn’t even realize they were rich; almost without exception, they wrongly viewed themselves as middle-class. But there’s no such thing as middle-class. The middle class does not exist. If you believe you are part of the middle class, it just means you’re rich and insecure or poor and misinformed.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Downtown OwlPosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 7:03 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Society is so confused, Mitch thought. Everyone wanted to become the person they were already pretending to be.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Downtown OwlPosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 6:54 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
This is ultimately what I like about the Born-Again Lifestyle: Even though I see fundamentalist Christians as wild-eyed maniacs, I respect their verve. They are probably the only people openly fighting against America’s insipid Oprah Culture – the pervasive belief system that insists everyone’s perspective is valid and that no one can be judged. As far as I can tell, most people I know are like me; most of the people I know are bad people (or they’re good people, but they consciously choose to do bad things). We deserve to be judged.
I realize that liberals and libertarians and Michael Stipe are always quick to quote the Bible when you say something like that, and they’ll tell you, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” And that’s a solid retort for just about anything, really. But the thing with born agains is that they want to be judged. They can’t fucking wait. That’s why they’re cool.Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 19 Sep 2009 at 9:31 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
For the past twenty-five years, culture has been obsessed with making males and females more alike, and that’s fine. Maybe it’s even enlightened. But what I’ve noticed – at least among young people – is that this convergence has mostly just prompted females to adopt the worst qualities of men. It’s like girls are trying to attain equality by becoming equally shallow and selfish. Whenever I see TV shows like Fox’s defunct Ally McBeal or HBO’s Sex and the City, I find myself perplexed as to how this is sometimes viewed as an “advancement” for feminism; it seems to imply that it’s empowering for women to think like all of the stupidest men I know (myself included).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 19 Sep 2009 at 5:11 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!