Our modern society – especially in the West, and especially now – reveres youth.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and… too intelligent.

The Make in India campaign has taken off and is backed with skill development. It is going to open new vistas for employment for the youth.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

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

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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

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

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don’t try to play younger than I really am.

Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter – for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.

When I was young I didn’t care about education, just money and box office.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

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

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.

Everybody is entertained to death.

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It’s fine to be a pop star. ‚Oh, it’s great, lots of fun, aren’t they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!‘

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

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

I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation.

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.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.

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

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

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

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.

Younger people have greatest fears. Why is that? Because they don’t know the plot. They don’t know their own individual plot… they don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow… that are the aftermath of war.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

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

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn’t been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn’t like what a woman her age is offered. That’s a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.