Quotes about Society
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Privacy is a wonderful thing. Like love, privacy is most manifest in its absence.
Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.
I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck.
The world isn`t run by the laws written on paper. It`s run by people. Some according to laws, others not. It depends on each individual how his world will be, how he makes it. And you also need a whole lot of luck, so that somebody else doesn`t make your life hell. And it ain`t as simple as they tell you in grade school. But it is good to have strong values and to maintain them. In marriage, in crime, in war, always and everywhere.
Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to think and act as independently as possible.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We`re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn`t work, don`t buy it. Create your own. Most people can`t do it.
We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.
We should not seek immortality in reproduction. But if you contribute to the world`s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a spark plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool.