#soc

Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment ... There is no place in that town for the "interesting failure" or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in a upward-heading curve. ↗

— Julian Fellowes

#california #failure #los-angeles #materialism #society

We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will. ↗

— Jeffrey D. Sachs

#humanity-and-society #life #sustainability #wealth #life

The anarch knows the rules. He has studied them as a historian and goes along with them as a contemporary. Wherever possible, he plays his own game within their framework; this makes the fewest waves. ↗

— Ernst Jünger

#history #social-life #life

Quand on parle des vices d’un homme, si on vous dit : “Tout le monde le dit” ne le croyez pas ; si l’on parle de ses vertus en vous disant encore : “Tout le monde le dit”, croyez-le. ↗

— François-René de Chateaubriand

#people #relationships #society #wisdom #life

I am successful because of my brains and my guts, put together, and I don't need some fancy-ass degree from a bunch of sweater-vest-wearing pricks who haven't gotten laid since Bush Senior was president... Do you know who studies sociology? People who would rather observe life than live it. ↗

— Erin McCarthy

#brains #guts #intelligence #sociology #life

I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that's not pulling the trigger. ↗

— Mia Hamm

#futbol #hamm #mia #mia-hamm #shooting

Again the greatest use of a human was to be useful. Not to consume, not to watch, but to do something for someone else that improved their life, even for a few minutes. ↗

— Dave Eggers

#life

Bookworms aren't people who love to read. They are people who treat books as treasures. Anonymous ↗

— Bette A. Stevens

#life-science #social-science #life

Our categories are important. We cannot organize a social life, a political movement, or our individual identities and desires without them. The fact that categories invariably leak and can never contain all the relevant "existing things" does not render them useless, only limited. Categories like “woman,” “butch,” “lesbian,” or “transsexual” are all imperfect, historical, temporary, and arbitrary. We use them, and they use us. We use them to construct meaningful lives, and they mold us into historically specific forms of personhood. Instead of fighting for immaculate classifications and impenetrable boundaries, let us strive to maintain a community that understands diversity as a gift, sees anomalies as precious, and treats all basic principles with a hefty dose of skepticism. ↗

— Gayle Rubin

#diversity #history #identity #labels #lesbian

Pen and paper are my life now as in there presence i don't need any person to share my feelings because Earthlings have not anymore purity in their behaviors.....! ↗

— M.H. Rakib

#life