Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars – to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording – all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night. Sylvia Plath
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. ibid.
Experience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be. John Stuart Mill, The Autobiography
There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated. Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
The freedom of affluence opposes and contradicts the freedom of community life. Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace
Natural Selection is the driving force of our evolution. But that doesn’t mean that society ought to be run on Darwinian lines. As a scientist I’m thrilled by Natural Selection; but as a human being I abhor it as a principle for organising society. Richard Dawkins, The Genius of Charles Darwin part II, Channel 4 2008
In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society. Noam Chomsky
It’s long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle [individual material gain] will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it’s possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited – that the world is an infinite resource and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history either one of two things is possible: either the general population will take control over its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control. Noam Chomsky
Societies differ but in ours the major decisions over what happens in the society – decisions over investment and production and distribution and so on – are in the hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations and conglomerates and investment firms and so on – they are also the ones who staff the major executive positions in the government and they are the ones who own the media and they are the ones who have to be in a position to make the decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life happens. Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
The ideal is a completely fragmented atomised society where everyone’s totally alone doing nothing but trying to pursue created wants. Noam Chomsky, lecture ‘Class War: The Attack on Working People’, Youtube 2007
The real determinant of society is hidden behind the state and the economy: it is the way in which our everyday activity is organised, the subordination of our doing to the dictates of abstract labour, that is, of value, money, profit. It is this abstraction which is, after all, the very existence of the state. If we want to change society, we must stop the subordination of our activity to abstract labour, do something else. John Holloway, Crack Capitalism
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends. John Lennon
Because of this pyramidic hierarchical structure the psychopaths have clustered at the top. Tommy Sheridan, interview Ian R Crane, On the Edge 2012
I am not interested merely in a better organised society; I am not interested merely in working capitalism more efficiently than the capitalists themselves. I am interested in a society which is based upon co-operation and not upon competition. Trevor Park, address Labour Party Conference 1958
Society is built on many people hurting many people; it is just who does the hurting, which is forever in dispute. Norman Mailer, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, 1968
Commandment No. 1 of any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different. David Grayson, The Countryman’s Year, 1936
Society became my glittering bride,
And airy hopes my children. William Wordsworth, The Excursion
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 ...
There is
One great society alone on earth,
The noble Living, and the noble Dead. William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1850
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals. Oscar Wilde
I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely – or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! Oscar Wilde
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
This so-called affluent society is an ugly society still. It is a vulgar society. It is a meretricious society. It is a society in which priorities Aneurin Bevan, 1897-1960
No society can survive, no civilisation can survive, with 12-year-olds having babies, with 15-year-olds killing each other, with 17-year-olds dying of Aids, with 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can’t read. Newt Gingrich, cited The Times 9th February 1995
Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home. Stephen King, The Stand
I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers. Howard Zinn
A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. Robert A Heinlein, Friday
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill. Robert A Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Have you been out in society recently? ’Cause it’s SHIT. Russell Brand
To be ill-adjusted to a deranged world is not a breakdown. Jeanette Winterson
Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future – and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people. Albert Camus