I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

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

Dissident intellectuals aren’t all beautiful.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

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.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

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.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

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.

If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

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

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

For greed all nature is too little.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

The ‚public‘ scares me, but people I trust.

A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

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.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, ‚why don’t I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,‘ and they abandon their values.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness – great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.

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.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

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.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up – or else we all go down.

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

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

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

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.

You entertain people who are satisfied. Hungry people can’t be entertained – or people who are afraid. You can’t entertain a man who has no food.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

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

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

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.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

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

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.