A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

Society is at odds with itself.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

People like to talk about war.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress ‚suspects.‘

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‚Where’s the self-help section?‘ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

I think that people are tired. They’re tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

Every utopia – let’s just stick with the literary ones – faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

‚Fahrenheit 451‘ postulates a lot of things I didn’t want to have happen.

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.

Honolulu is a melting pot.

Trash talk? Smack talk? This is an American term that makes me laugh. I simply speak the truth. I’m an Irish man.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and… too intelligent.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.

If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic.

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

If we depend for our happiness on another, on society or on environment, they become essential to us; we cling to them, and any alteration of these we violently oppose because we depend upon them for our psychological security and comfort.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

In many ways, when you’re a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone – except God.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

The environment that we call society is created by past generations; we accept it, as it helps us to maintain our greed, possessiveness, illusion.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

Many Tibetans sacrifice their lives.