Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

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

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

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

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

I live in a crazy time.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

People love conspiracy theories.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

If you look at the history of our country over the last 100 years, there have been periods where science and research have been celebrated. They were really kind of held up as heroes in society, which encouraged a generation of people to go into these fields.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

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

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

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

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new ‚solution‘ to society’s ‚problems.‘

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

Common sense is not so common.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.

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.

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.

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

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

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.

It’s rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

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.

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.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

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

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

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

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.

My greatest strength is common sense. I’m really a standard brand – like Campbell’s tomato soup or Baker’s chocolate.

Society is at odds with itself.

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?

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

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

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

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.

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

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

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

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.