Quotes about Society

In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts

Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That's the problem. "The Minister to the Valley," February 23, 1968

They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.

A fortune for one man that was more than he needed should not be build on ten thousand ruined men who were left without the means of life.

Sure, what is murder? Isn't it common enough in these parts? It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to be murdered.

Truly, the old maid is a most useful person, one of the reserve forces of the community. They talk of the superfluous woman, but what would the poor superfluous man do without her kindly presence?

Every society requires mutual accommodation and mutually agreeable temper; hence the larger it is, the duller.

Men of very great capacity, will as a rule, find the company of very stupid people preferable to that of the common run; for the same reason that the tyrant and the mob, the grandfather and the grandchildren, are natural allies.

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying.

Each of us struggles daily with the pressures of conformity and the loneliness of difference from which those choices seem to offer escape.

IF this society ascribes roles to Black men which they are not allowed to fulfill, is it Black women who must bend and alter our lives to compensate, or is it society that needs changing? And why should Black men accept these roles as correct ones, or anything other than a narcotic promise encouraging acceptance of other facets of their own oppression?