#society

It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. ↗

— George Orwell

#fear-of-the-future #inequality #poverty #society #imagination

Fear doesn't shut you down, it wakes you up ↗

— Veronica Roth

#factions #hard-life #inspirational #society #inspirational

Pedir perdón es humillante y no arregla nada. La solución no es pedir perdón, sino evitar los estallidos que hacen obligatorias las excusas ↗

— Mario Benedetti

#inspirational #intelligence #society #inspirational

Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room. ↗

— Bill Gates

#choices #life #society #life

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#floats #layer #like #once #society

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn’t possible to save mankind. ↗

— Wisława Szymborska

#life

I like these people swarming on the sidewalks, wedged into a little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs, cold lands, and the sea streaming like a wet wash. I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere. ↗

— Albert Camus

#society #life

L'éducation est un processus culturel (...) par lequel chaque nouvel individu est transformé en membre à part entière d'une société humaine particulière, partageant avec les autres membres une culture particulière. ↗

— Margaret Mead

#education #margaret-meade-featherstonhaugh #society #education

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#status #life

A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean… It takes on all kinds of different shapes—sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and their faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#others #society #state #life