The environment that we call society is created by past generations; we accept it, as it helps us to maintain our greed, possessiveness, illusion.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.

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?

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

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.

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

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

People love conspiracy theories.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

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

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

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.

It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.

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.

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

Stop this attitude that older people ain’t any good anymore! We’re as good as we ever were – if we ever were any good.

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

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

In the case of the environment, there’s no one to bail it out.

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

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

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.

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

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

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

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.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.

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

The American people have not become heartless.

More businesses should be following Apple’s stance in encouraging more investment in sustainability.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Part of your heritage in this society is the opportunity to become financially independent.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

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

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.

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

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