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.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

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.

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

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

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

Everybody is entertained to death.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

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

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

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

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

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

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

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.

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

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

You don’t need a lot of credentials to be prison guard in a federal prison. And, you know, you give them a set of keys and a weapon, and they’re in power.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

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

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

The devil ain’t got no power over me. The devil come, and me shake hands with the devil. Devil have his part to play. Devil’s a good friend, too… because when you don’t know him, that’s the time he can mosh you down.

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan’s writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

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

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Power is a complicated word and can take many forms.

The French are so into themselves that they don’t even notice you.

To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

Hoover was a patriot in his heart, but he definitely exceeded his power.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

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

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

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any other group of men, no matter how powerful.

The mainstream is always under attack.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

I think that man has a fundamental obligation to extract from himself and from the earth all that it can give; and this obligation is all the more imperative that we are absolutely ignorant of what limits – they may still be very distant – God has imposed on our natural understanding and power.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

People love conspiracy theories.

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.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

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

For my part, I desire to see the time when education – and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry – shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.