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society

There is such an intimate connection between the different parts of Society, that one cannot strike one part without its having repercussions on the others.

- Jean François Melon

It is precisely when a social order begins to fall apart that one can discern what has held it together in the first place.

- Karl Mannheim

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

- Thomas Paine

History may measure the worth of a nation not by the lilt of its slogans or the might of its arsenals or its troyweights of gold, but by how evenhandedly it has dealt with all its citizens and how consistently it has denied dignity to none.

- Richard Kluger

In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.

- Karl Popper

Everyone should have biases, and should be forgiven them.

- Scott Weidensaul

The freedom of a country can only be measured by its respect for the rights of its citizens.

- Edward Snowden

No national culture can have a healthy and continuous growth without being periodically fertilized by fresh inspiration and new ideas from abroad.

- C. R. Boxer

Wherever purity is paramount, terror is close at hand.

- Lawrence Wright

Better 60 years of tyranny than 1 day of anarchy.

- An Arab proverb

Class is defined by men as they live their own history.

- E.P. Thompson

A constitution is a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.

- Edmund Burke

Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.

- Rice v. Cayetano

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

- John Marshall Harlan

It is collective self-consciousness which distinguishes the 19th century working class from the 18th century mob.

- E. P. Thompson

A sort of Socratic spirit will necessarily grow up, wherever large bodies assemble.

- John Thelwall

The lord prefers common looking people, that is why he made so many of them.

- Abraham Lincoln

The mass is always the magnified reflection of some individual.

- Harry Reichenbach

Institutions are the shadows of men.

- Emerson

The more hierarchical a society becomes, the stronger is the cultural dominion of its elite.

- David Hackett Fischer

There will always be an inner circle of corporate executives, politicians, lawyers, and judges to control the others and obtain the real rewards.

- Theodore Roosevelt

The river of power flows from the Ivy League.

- Joe Biden

The laws are spider webs, they catch the little, but are brushed aside by the big.

- Saying in the Spanish Indies

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

A law is a prediction of what the courts will do.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Law forces us to distill things down to their essence.

- Mary Jo White

Lawyers are on all sides of all questions.

- Richard Kluger

A lawyer is simply a highly skilled technician who does not build or erect or paint anything. He does not create. All he does is lubricate the wheels of society by implementing the rules of conduct by which the organized life of men must be carried on.

- John W. Davis

The magnet which attracts corrupters and the natural locus of corruption is always where the discretionary power resides.

- Edward Costikyan

The hand you dare not bite, kiss it.

- Calouste Gulbenkian

In the real world, everyone has something to lose.

- Thomas Friedman

There’s always a best hotel in every town. And the best room of the best hotel always has someone in it.

- J. Paul Getty

If this is not democracy, then it is difficult to imagine what is.

- Robert Moses

Understanding political power in a democracy requires understanding elections.

- Robert Caro

All winning campaigns communicate optimism.

- Richard Ben Cramer

Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest arts.

- Felix Frankfurter

The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people.

- Lyndon B. Johnson

Vom Staat soll an erster Stelle die Rede sein.

- A principal shared among German historians.

Symbolism becomes considerably more important in foreign policy issues than in bread and butter domestic issues where the voter can measure promises and rhetoric against performance and reliability.

- Richard Holbrooke

In government, foolish certainty usually beats fragile wisdom.

- George Packer

Government by precedent, without regard of the principals behind precedent, is one of the vilest systems that can be setup.

- Thomas Paine

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the later.

- Thomas Jefferson

The daily newspaper is the prayer of the modern man.

- Hegel

In a crisis the middle class mind tries to assume a lofty detachment from the deep issues of the day.

- Max Lerner

Sensible men are all of the same religion, but they’d never tell.

- Benjamin Disraeli

If there were not merchants who go to seek for earthly treasures in the Indies, who would transport thither the preachers who take the heavenly treasures?

- Pablo Antonio Vieira

The more backwards a country, the more powerful is the influence of religious superstition and the more likely the people are to worship idols and animals.

- Kume Kunitake

The Reformation spoke the language of nationalism.

- Namier

Behind every great civilization is a vision.

- Christopher Dawson

Mankind progresses from East to West.

- Henry David Thoreau

The world is moving to the left.

- Lyndon B. Johnson

Every generation cherishes illusions which baffle its successors.

- William Manchester

We are all marked to some extent by the stamp of our generation.

- Anthony Eden

What a convenient thing is a mask. Under the mask every man is equal and the principal magistrates can daily discover for themselves all the little things that concern the people. Behind the mask the doge himself may often be taking a walk.

- Goldoni

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

- Leo Tolstoy

Happy is the country that produces a hero. Unhappy is the people that need one.

- Bertolt Brecht

Religion conciliates, magic constrains.

- James George Fraser

It is not the nature of established governments to opt for change, even in their own interests.

- Barbara Tuchman

Wants may be easily satisfied by producing much or desiring little.

- Marshall Sahlins

Dare to know. Have courage to use your own reason. This is the motto of the enlightenment.

- Immanuel Kant

Artillery deepens the tone of the argument.

- Shelby Foote

Orthodoxies serve to exploit the moral authority of an inherited doctrine in the interest of a ruling group.

- Isaac Deutscher

To re-educate the people in the love of liberty is more difficult than to conquer liberty.

- Babeuf

Great art discloses much that does not appear elsewhere - the unconscious forces, the unspoken ideas, the silent motives of a period.

- George Sansom

Every man is trying to live up to his fathers expectations or make up for his fathers mistakes.

- Barack Obama

There are things that must be concealed in order to be attained. Proclaiming them for what they are would give rise to obstacles too formidable to be overcome.

- José Martí

The pupil is mature when he has learned enough from others to learn for himself.

- Wilhelm von Humboldt

Politics is no science, it is an art. And anyone without the knack for it should leave it alone.

- Otto Von Bismarck

The keywords of Chinese thought are order, pattern, and organism.

- Joseph Needham

I will tell you what politics is about. I make a decision. I tell someone else the opposite. Then I do something which surprises even myself.

- Saddam Hussein

The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean Ukraine.

- George Bush

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

- William Sherman

There is no such thing as society, there are individual men and women.

- Margaret Thatcher

A worldview is the projection of psychological inclination onto reality.

- George Packer

A dungeon is as good a place as any for a patriot to serve his country in time of strain.

- Shelby Foote

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

In democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve.

- Adlai Stevenson

To know how to deceive is the knowledge of kings.

- Richelieu

The people must have a religion, and the religion must be in the hands of the government.

- Napoleon

Reality television is a museum of social decay.

- Gary Oldman

There are three things worthwhile in the world. Justice, beauty, and truth. Perhaps none can be defined.

- Will Durant

He who cannot obey cannot command.

- Aristotle

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

- Julia Coleman