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Category Society

Featured Quote in Society

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Civilization · 1870

Subcategories

Community (8) Culture (15) Family (6) Class (7) Gender (5) Race (2) Urban life (0) Inequality (1)

Society Quotes

“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Civilization, 1870 · Primary source

“If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · My Day, 1935-1962 · Primary source

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“The idea that Britain loses every battle except the last has proved correct so many times in the past that the average Englishman is unwilling to make great personal sacrifices until the danger is overwhelmingly apparent.”

John F. Kennedy · Why England Slept, 1940 · Primary source

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

Ayn Rand · The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, 1986 · Primary source

“As I look back on the flight I think two questions have been asked me most frequently. First: Was I afraid? Secondly: What did I wear?”

Amelia Earhart · 20 Hrs. 40 Min., 1928 · Primary source

“These Secret Service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Money and good manners make the gentleman.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Smoking I find the most ridiculous of all the varieties of human behaviour and practically the only one that is entirely against nature. Can you imagine a cow or any animal taking a mouthful of smouldering straw then breathing in the smoke and blowing it out through its nostrils?”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“One good husband is worth two good wives; for the scarcer things are the more they’re valued.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. ‘Huh,’ ‘hun’ and ‘hi!’ in their various modulations, together with ‘sure,’ ‘guess so,’ ‘that so?’ and ‘nuts!’ will meet almost any contingency.”

Ian Fleming · For Your Eyes Only, 1960 · Primary source

“I don’t drink tea. I hate it. It’s mud. Moreover it’s one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire.”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.”

Ian Fleming · Diamonds Are Forever, 1956 · Primary source

“A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“A plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Civilization, 1870 · Primary source

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence—these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“A cultivated class, for example, finds most difficulty in getting on with another which has acquired part—but only part—of its culture and customs.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · No reliable source

“When you speak to a man, look on his eyes; when he speaks to thee, look on his mouth.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If you’d lose a troublesome visitor, lend him money.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“Late children, early orphans.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Fish and visitors stink in three days.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Marry above thy match, and thou'lt get a master.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“We stated before that men’s ideas change slowly and that a nation’s ideas change even more slowly. It takes shocks—hard shocks—to change a nation’s psychology.”

John F. Kennedy · Why England Slept, 1940 · Primary source

“While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.”

John F. Kennedy · Ich bin ein Berliner speech, 1963 · Primary source

“He [the American] is friendly, self-confident, optimistic—and without envy.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.”

John F. Kennedy · Civil Rights Address, 1963 · Primary source

“The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · Civilization on Trial, 1948 · Primary source

“Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Honor thy father and mother, i.e., live so as to be an honor to them when they are dead.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“That I am a foreigner is not my fault. I would rather have been born here.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Understanding is a two-way street.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · No reliable source

“Bond loathed and despised tea, that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses, but on his empty stomach, and in his febrile state, the sugary brew acted almost as an intoxicant.”

Ian Fleming · Thunderball, 1961 · Primary source

“SCRAMBLED EGGS ‘JAMES BOND’
For FOUR individualists:

12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter

Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy-bottomed saucepan) melt four oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in the eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.

While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fine herbs. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittinger) and low music.”

Ian Fleming · Octopussy and The Living Daylights, 1966 · Primary source

“Now it is a law which hardly admits of exceptions, that aristocracies do not maintain their numbers. The ruling race rules itself out; nothing fails like success.”

William Ralph Inge · Outspoken Essays, 1919+1922 · Primary source

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

Helen Keller · No reliable source

“Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. It be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, them it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Abraham Lincoln · House Divided Speech, 1858 · Primary source

“Anytime we have new forms of communication it changes behavior whether it is political or business or any type of behavior.”

Bill Gates · Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates, 1993 · Primary source

“Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“The new elite which seeks to supersede the old one, or merely to share its power and honors, does not admit to such an intention frankly and openly.”

Vilfredo Pareto · The Rise and Fall of Elites, 1900 · Primary source

“The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.”

Abraham Lincoln · First Inaugural Address, 1861 · Primary source

“The history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines.”

Vilfredo Pareto · The Rise and Fall of Elites, 1900 · Primary source

“Only law firm out there’s called Smith and Wesson.”

Ian Fleming · Diamonds Are Forever, 1956 · Primary source

“The highest result of education is tolerance.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“Society in large towns is babyish, and wealth is made a toy.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Nothing so popular as goodness.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Beauty and folly are old companions.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Of all the things humans have ever created, AI will change society the most.”

Bill Gates · The Year Ahead 2026: Optimism with footnotes, 2026 · Primary source

“I encourage everyone to follow developments in AI as much as possible. It’s the most transformative innovation any of us will see in our lifetimes.”

Bill Gates · The Risks of AI are Real but Manageable, 2023 · Primary source

“The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.”

Winston Churchill · A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, 1956-1958 · Primary source

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.”

Vilfredo Pareto · Manual of Political Economy, 1906 · Primary source

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Abraham Lincoln · First Inaugural Address, 1861 · Primary source

“Desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“I’m a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don’t believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life’s not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was. But I really believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education.”

Steve Jobs · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Steve Jobs, 1995 · Primary source

“The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity. It was often the mark of a cad. Bond decided to forget his prejudice.”

Ian Fleming · From Russia, with Love, 1957 · Primary source

“He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“Silk and satins and scarlets and velvets put out the kitchen fire.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“You will be careful, if you are wise; how you touch men’s religion, or credit, or eyes.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The contact of civilisations has always been, and will always continue to be, a ruling factor in human progress and failure.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, 1922 · Primary source

“When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.”

Vilfredo Pareto · Manual of Political Economy, 1906 · Primary source

“Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · Tomorrow is Now, 1963 · Primary source

“We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work toward his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to help those to whom we feel we can be most useful.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“’Tis a shame that your family is an honor to you! You ought to be an honor to your family.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Assume that the new elite were clearly and simply to proclaim its intentions which are to supplant the old elite; no one would come to its assistance, it would be defeated before having fought a battle. On the contrary, it appears to be asking nothing for itself, well knowing that without asking anything in advance it will obtain what it wants as a consequence of its victory.”

Vilfredo Pareto · Manual of Political Economy, 1906 · Primary source

“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my bookfriends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and heavenly charities.”

Helen Keller · The Story of My Life, 1903 · Primary source

“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,—we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“A good lawyer, a bad neighbor.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong.”

Jack London · White Fang, 1906 · Primary source

Explore the category

Society

8 subcategories · 13 authors · 22 works · 179 themes · 367 tags
Authors
Albert Einstein Theoretical physicistAmelia Earhart American aviation pioneerBenjamin Franklin American statesman
Works
Ideas and Opinions Albert Einstein · 195420 Hrs. 40 Min. Amelia Earhart · 1928Poor Richard’s Almanack Benjamin Franklin · 1732-1758
Themes
Equality of opportunityCharacter as a measure of civilisationHuman development beyond material growth
Tags
MarriageReputationRelationshipsSocial status
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