The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
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Quotes tagged ‘Society’
For everybody and every thing conspire to make me as contented as possible in it; yet I have seen too much of the vanity of human affairs, to expect felicity from the splendid scenes of public life.
The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances.
'But the people choose their own rulers,' remarked Errington reflectively. 'Ah, the poor people!' sighed Thelma. 'They know so very little, and they are taught so badly! I think they never do quite understand what they do want — they are the same in all histories — like little children, they get bew…
Modern society contains within itself the seed of its own destruction . . . For God's justice is a circle that slowly surrounds an evil and as slowly closes on it with crushing and resistless force — and feverish, fretting humanity, however nobly inspired, can do nothing either to hasten or retard t…
The minority must have involvement in society. You can have different cultural practices that you accept. But if you are going to adopt democracy in government, then the government itself must allow the minority to be heard.
Chess is for those who intend to form republics. All the worry and calculation — all the moves of pawns, bishops, knights, castles, and queen, all to shelter the throne which is not worth protecting!
Is it not true that many people do hide their feelings, and pretend to be quite different to what they are?
Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But fro…
Apologies are meaningless without action to rectify the harm done and prevent a repetition of the problem.
Nice is not the same as kind. Nice is not the same as ethical. Nice is not the same as moral. The older I get, the less interested I am in 'nice.' Nice is the gift wrap; it says nothing about what’s inside.
Power & positioning matter. We have a responsibility to critique systems, but we also have to be ever mindful of our own role in those systems. I do think that we should disclose when & where we, too, are complicit.
The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
Humility makes for more productive politics. If it vanishes entirely, we will tear our society apart.
Everything in every way has been begun and completed and then forgotten over and over, in this world, — to be begun and completed and forgotten again, and so on to the end of the chapter. No one nation is better than another in this respect, — there is, there can be nothing new.
There are no friends now; the world is a great field of battle, — each man fights the other. There is no peace, — none anywhere! The wind fights with the forests; you can hear them slashing and slaying all night long — when it is night — the long, long night! The sun fights with the sky, the light w…
It is the fashion there to find fault with everything and everybody.
Women are not interchangeable, we are not commodities, and we will not be 'distributed' against our will.
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
We’ve created a society that protects itself from the darkness and the death and destruction that’s all around us. There’s probably a stack of dead bodies in a morgue within six blocks from here, but it’s so gross that we keep that compartmentalized.