In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

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

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

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

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

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

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

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.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

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.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

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.

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

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

I don’t travel with them, but they can’t be missing in my home. There have to always be dominoes… I used to play with my family – dad, my grandpa, my uncles.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

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.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

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

My aim is to create a happy society with genuine friendship. Friendship between Tibetan and Chinese peoples is very essential.

I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.

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

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

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

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

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

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

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

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

Free institutions certainly exist, but a tradition of passivity and conformism restricts their use – a cynic might say that this is why they continue to exist.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall.

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?