A collection of quotes on the topic of society, people, other, use.
The Reason and the objective of Education Reform
Education for All People and Education for Life
Interview with Polish website Plejada (25 November 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqJC-ZSseU&t=552
The Third Notebook: Part Two
Source: No Longer Human
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
Source: Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals
citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.
The Third Notebook: Part Two
No Longer Human
Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 33.
“Begum Rokeya had dreamt of a society where women would be magistrates, judges and barristers”
Context: Begum Rokeya had dreamt of a society where women would be magistrates, judges and barristers and that has come true as many women are already there in such posts.
Source: Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics
Variant: A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.
Source: The Human Revolution
The Second Notebook
No Longer Human
“Each place has its own advantages - heaven for the climate, and hell for the society.”
“In a society where you are taught to love everything, what value does that place on love?”
Variant: When you're taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, what value does that put on love?
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 14, pg. 87-88
Context: Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.
Context: We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness men agree to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are just.
Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5
Context: Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
İki Mustafa Kemal vardır: Biri ben, et ve kemik, geçici Mustafa Kemal... İkinci Mustafa Kemal, onu "ben" kelimesiyle ifade edemem; o, ben değil, bizdir! O, memleketin her köşesinde yeni fikir, yeni hayat ve büyük ülkü için uğraşan aydın ve savaşçı bir topluluktur. Ben, onların rüyasını temsil ediyorum. Benim teşebbüslerim, onların özlemini çektikleri şeyleri tatmin içindir. O Mustafa Kemal sizsiniz, hepinizsiniz. Geçici olmayan, yaşaması ve başarılı olması gereken Mustafa Kemal odur.
As quoted in Ataturk: First President and Founder of the Turkish Republic (2002) by Yüksel Atillasoy, p. 19
Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1
As quoted in "Entrevista com o médico americano P. Adams" in Roda Viva - Entrevista (13 November 2007)
On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
As quoted in Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands (2010) by Cathryn Berger Kaye and Philippe Cousteau, p. 14
First Mughal emperor Babur wrote in his autobiography Tuzk-e-Babri
pg 9.
Science in a Free Society (1978)
Context: A free society is a society in which all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centers of power. A tradition receives these rights not because the importance the cash value, as it were) it has for outsiders but because it gives meaning to the lives of those who participate in it.
“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
This has been attributed to Orwell on the internet, but the earliest source citing him as author appears to be a post from Jsnip4 on the RealistNews.net forum (15 February 2011) http://www.realistnews.net/Thread-realist-news-was-the-capital-gains-tax-just-removed-regarding-bullion. Prior to this, the statement occurred, without attribution to Orwell, in an opinion piece by columnist Selwyn Duke http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/duke/090506, "Stopping Truth At The Border: Banning Michael Savage From Britain" (6 May 2009) https://web.archive.org/web/20150701002957/http://www.conservativecrusader.com/articles/stopping-truth-at-the-border-banning-michael-savage-from-britain.
Misattributed
Speech at the Republican National Convention, Platform Committee Meeting, Miami, Florida" (31 July 1968)
1960s
Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5.
" Women: One Half of Our Society http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Women_-_One_half_of_our_society" (1981).
Source: The Revolution and Woman in Iraq
Context: The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.
Le philosophe se place au sommet de la pensée; de là il envisage ce qu'a été le monde et ce qu'il doit devenir. Il n'est pas seulement observateur, il est acteur; il est acteur du premier genre dans le monde moral, car ce sont ses opinions sur, car ce sont ses opinions sur ce que le monde doit devenir qui règlent la société humaine.
Science de l'homme: Physiologie religieuse (1858), p. 437
Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 147
Source: Interview by Charlie Rose of Bloomberg - video https://video-kul1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.3356-2/13862860_1329741163720893_1430621767_n.mp4/video-1469885440.mp4?vabr=114407&oh=bff4e8f9cedc225267e41ec705562dcf&oe=582E0B32&dl=0: 1 minute 53 seconds into the video
Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 12, p. 203
Source: Reflections of Humanity, (1984), p. 17: Second paragraph.
“One does not have to be a Marxist to know there is something very wrong in this society.”
4 POLITICAL THEORY AN CONSCIOUSNESS, Political Science Fiction, p. 231
Dirty truths (1996), first edition
Source: A General View of Positivism (1848, 1856), p. 235
"The 1% Pathology And The Myth of Capitalism" October 19, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyX7GNHYkQ&t=218
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
Ruth in her letter to Robert
Ch. 19
I Am Legend (1954)
Context: I’m writing this note, though, because I want to save you if I can.
When I was first given the job of spying on you, I had no feelings about your life. Because I did have a husband, Robert. You killed him.
But now it’s different. I know now that you were just as much forced into your situation as we were forced into ours. We are infected. But you already know that. What you don’t understand yet is that we’re going to stay alive. We’ve found a way to do that and we’re going to set up society again slowly but surely. We’re going to do away with all those wretched creatures whom death has cheated. And, even though I pray otherwise, we may decide to kill you and those like you.
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)
“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness”
1770s, Common Sense (1776)
Context: Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)
Context: The world has gotten smaller and no country is going to succeed if part of its population is put on the sidelines because they’re discriminated against. [... ] No society is going to succeed if half your population -- meaning women -- aren’t getting the same education and employment opportunities as men. So I think the key point for all of you, especially as young people, is you should embrace your culture. You should be proud of who you are and your background. And you should appreciate the differences in language and food. And how you worship God is going to be different, and those are things that you should be proud of. But it shouldn’t be a tool to look down on somebody else. It shouldn’t be a reason to discriminate. And you have to make sure that you are speaking out against that in your daily life, and as you emerge as leaders you should be on the side of politics that brings people together rather than drives them apart. That is the most important thing for this generation. And part of the way to do that is to be able to stand in other people’s shoes, see through their eyes. Almost every religion has within it the basic principle that I, as a Christian, understand from the teachings of Jesus. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat people the way you want to be treated. And if you’re not doing that and if society is not respecting that basic principle, then we’re going backwards instead of going forward. [... ] And when you see astronauts from Japan or from the United States or from Russia or others working together, and they’re looking down at this planet from a distance you realize we’re all on this little rock in the middle of space and the differences that seem so important to us from a distance dissolve into nothing. And so, we have to have that same perspective -- respecting everybody, treating everybody equally under the law. That has to be a principle that all of you uphold.
"On Revolutionary Morality" (1958)
1950's, On Revolutionary Morality (1958)
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017
Source: La Dolce Vita: Federico Fellini's Masterpiece
“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”
“Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.”
Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution
“A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.”
“We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.”
“Every society is three meals away from chaos”
“A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.”
“A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting.”
“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
Mistakenly attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; mistakenly attributed to Brecht in Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80; variant translation: "Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."
First recorded in Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924; edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4: Futurism, p. 120): "Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes."
Disputed
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
Part 2, VIII.84
Human Action (1949)
“Consume according to your requirements and contribute the rest to the society through Dasoha.”
Basavanna's Preachings
Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Open letter to the Fourth Soviet Writers’ Congress (16 May 1967) “The Struggle Intensifies,” Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, ed. Leopold Labedz (1970).
“Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.”
"The Art of Donald McGill" (1941)
Address By Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma President Of India On The Occasion Of The 50th Anniversary Of The First Sitting Of The Constituent Assembly
http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/articles/guitaryear.htm
Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), pp. 39-41
"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Charles Dickens (1939)
The Opium of Intellectuals (1955), Conclusion: The End of the Ideological Age?
"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1=
2010
Introduction; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased : Our civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Habermas (2004) in: Giovanna Borradori (2004) Philosophy in a Time of Terror: : Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. p. 34
" 'I Am at Home' Says Robeson at Reception in Soviet Union http://www.mltranslations.org/Miscellaneous/RobesonSU.htm", Daily Worker (15 January 1935)
Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)
Michael Moore declares these lines in his film Fahrenheit 9/11 as something "Orwell once wrote". They are nearly identical to a block of voiceover in the 1984 Richard Burton/John Hurt movie version of 1984 when Winston (Hurt) is silently reading Goldstein's book. All of the lines are excerpts from various parts of Goldstein's book in part 2, chapter 9 of the novel with some paraphrasing. Note that the fourth sentence begins with "This new version". In Moore's speech there is no antecedent for this phrase; consequently, the sentence makes no sense there. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SVrM2Ef81C7EUSTm4zsgjQk9mgMSeFUnlEvtleR2V1w/edit?usp=sharing http://metabunk.org/threads/debunked-war-is-not-meant-to-be-won-it-is-meant-to-be-continuous.1259/
Misattributed
