The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.
Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control.
when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.
Article XVI – Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution.
Article XV – The society has the right of requesting account from any public agent of its administration.
Article V – The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.
Society is composed of two great classes those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.
A society is only strong when it opens the truth up to the bright light of the sun.
It is impossible for society to exist without laws.
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.
When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society.
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
Which was the most necessary, society already formed to invent languages, or languages already invented to form society?
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be ... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.
Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.
He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest.
No emancipation without that of society.
An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences.
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.
I had three chairs in my house one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.
