A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

We live in an imperfect world, and imperfect people surround us every day.

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.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.

The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.

Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

I’m interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

People like to talk about war.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

I have this feeling that the world is not in balance. And people are afraid, but we’re also starting to be really brave.

Although the big word on the left is ‚compassion,‘ the big agenda on the left is dependency.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

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

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

The mainstream is always under attack.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.