#society

A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. ↗

— Clifford Geertz

#religion #society #symbolism #symbols #men

In my opinion, our health care system has failed when a doctor fails to treat an illness that is treatable. ↗

— Kevin Alan Lee

#government #health-care #health-care-system #humanism #medical

An isolated person requires correspondence as a means of seeing his ideas as others see them, and thus guarding against the dogmatisms and extravagances of solitary and uncorrected speculation. No man can learn to reason and appraise from a mere perusal of the writing of others. If he live not in the world, where he can observe the public at first hand and be directed toward solid reality by the force of conversation and spoken debate, then he must sharpen his discrimination and regulate his perceptive balance by an equivalent exchange of ideas in epistolary form. ↗

— H.P. Lovecraft

#correspondence #letters #society #solitude #perception

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons. ↗

— Ron Paul

#society

When you read, don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think ↗

— Tom Schulman

#john-keating #tom-schulman #authority

Law and custom are becoming the subjects of a new field of learning. The anarch endeavors to judge them ethnographically, historically, and also – I will probably come back to this – morally. The State will be generally satisfied with him; it will scarcely notice him In this respect he bears a certain resemblance to the criminal – say, the master spy – whose gifts are concealed behind a run-of-the-mill occupation. ↗

— Ernst Jünger

#ernst-jünger #society #respect

I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news ... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right. ↗

— Frank Zappa

#media #society #comedy

Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance. ↗

— Hendrik Willem Van Loon

#hendrick-van-loon #ignorance #society #willful-ignorance #education

To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself. ↗

— Henry Miller

#society #the-colossus-of-maroussi #wisdom-of-silence #medicine

A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past. ↗

— Fidel Castro

#revolution #society #time #conflict