#soc

My idea of socialism is no state monopoly. There should be stress on the subjectivity of the human being. You need good material conditions, a high level of culture, much freedom and friendship. And it won't come today or tomorrow. It's a long and winding road ↗

— Marek Edelman

#quoted-by-paul-mason #socialism #freedom

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? The reason is clearly that the human heart as modern civilisation has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied, because it feels deply, perhaps even unconsciously, that it has somehow missed the meaning of life, that perhaps others, but not we ourselves, have secured the good things which nature offers man's enjoyment. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#society #friendship

Friendship is like putting butter on your socks before you slide them on. Sure, we all do it occasionally, but most of us would rather eat breakfast bare-handed at least once in a while. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#butter #food #friendship #funny #humor

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#democracy #funny #humour #politics #revolution

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell. ↗

— Criss Jami

#funny-but-true #hell #humor #introversion #introvert

Kat," Hale groaned, then fell back onto the pillows. "Funny, I didn't hear a doorbell." "I let myself in; hope that's okay." Hale smiled. "Or the alarm." She stepped inside, tossed a pocket-size bag of tools onto the bed. "You're due for an upgrade." Hale propped himself against the antique headboard and squinted up at her. "She returns." He crossed his arms across his bare chest. "You know, I could be naked in here. ↗

— Ally Carter

#ally-carter #bishop #carter #hale #heist

You’re probably wondering what sort of “secret society” I’m in. Well, I can’t tell you much, but I can tell you it’s not the Skull and Bones, the Masons, or the Cacophony Society. No, this secret society is so secret that I’m not even sure I’m a member. I can tell you the group I might belong to calls itself “The Whispers,” and takes its secrecy very seriously. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#secret-society #funny

The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection. ↗

— William H. Seward

#government #happiness #live #organized #political

The moderns, carrying little baggage of the kind that Shelly called "merely cultural," not even living in the traditional air, but breathing into their space helmets a scientific mixture of synthetic gases (and polluted at that) are the true pioneers. Their circuitry seems to include no atavistic domestic sentiment, they have suffered empathectomy, their computers hum no ghostly feedback of Home, Sweet Home. How marvelously free they are! How unutterably deprived! ↗

— Wallace Stegner

#empathy #modern-society #progress #shallowness #technology

She was a thin woman in a mustard-yellow suit, with a yellowish complexion, short-cropped rusty red hair, and a stiff posture. She reminded Reynie of a giant walking pencil. ↗

— Trenton Lee Stewart

#the-mysterious-benedict-society #humor