What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies?
MacMillian pinched the bridge of his nose. Conspiracy theories, secret societies... what the hell had he gotten himself into? What was next? Vampires? Werewolves?
What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?
The only differences between a cult and a religion are the numbers of adherents and the degree to which they are marginalized by the rest of society.
There are politics in sexual relationships because they occur in the context of a society that assigns power based on gender and other systems of inequality and privilege.
Slavery does not merely mean a legalised form of subjection. It means a state of society in which some men are forced to accept from others the purposes which control their conduct.
If you've been running a business for 38 years, you're approaching your 66th birthday, you've never owed a man a penny or done anyone any grievance in your life, and you feel hard done-by and try to protect yourself and your family, but go to prison,...
The working class of England today have no vision of society beyond the acquisitive - no version of themselves or their habits as anything other than transitional, on their way up or on their way out. The working class, at best, is a waiting room for...
Society as a whole is better off when information is available to the public. Whether you are talking about how to prevent disease, or about who does the best job of treating disease, it is useful to provide as much information to the public as possi...
I think some of the best reporters are the ones who can really illustrate the differences between societies, at the same time trying to connect the fact that there are a lot of shared values in addition to those differences.
We're a phenomenally snobby society, and it's such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.
If the truth be told, we are a society that is dripping in racism. This is not in the least surprising. For the best part of two centuries, we British ruled the waves, controlled two-fifths of the planet, and believed it was our responsibility to bri...
I think that the best things that governments can do for productivity is not whack on new taxes and, if we can get institutions like schools and hospitals functioning better, well that's obviously good for the overall productiveness of our society.
The reason societies with democratic governments are better places to live in than their alternatives isn't because of some goodness intrinsic to democracy, but because its hopeless inefficiency helps blunt the basic potential for evil.
does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?
From New Delhi to New York, from Durban to Rio; women and girls are been hunted down by rapists, abused by pedophiles and emotionally decapitated by a society that is becoming increasingly hostile to the womenfolk
Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama; fathers and sons, martyred heroes, star-crossed lovers, the deaths of kings - stories that taught us of the danger of hubris and the primacy of hu...
The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs.
I have written in my life many critical poems, but viewed in retrospect, they were merely a human harmless reflection, and not a true likeness of the real society of today.
Submitting to history allows us to remember our society’s past. Although writing and art express history, it's our humanity which keeps all of us striving for an improved future.
I think that Jews - because they are a distinct, gifted and successful group that differentiates itself from societies in which it lives - are vulnerable wherever the rule of law is not paramount.
