Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

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

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don’t think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

Music is always a commentary on society.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.

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.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

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.

My heart aches for America and its deceived people.

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Everybody is entertained to death.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.

People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that’s how they’ll react. But if you say, ‚We want peace, we want stability,‘ we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society.

There has to be a global mission of human progress.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

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

Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.

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

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

It isn’t generally the case that liberals dominate entire hierarchies. That isn’t generally how it works, because the hierarchies are usually set up so that conservatives fill up the hierarchies; it’s in the nature of hierarchy.

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

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

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

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

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

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.

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.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

I love the natural world – it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.