140 Quotes About Social-commentary

I alternate between feeling sympathetic toward humanity and being a misanthrope. When I'm sympathetic, it usually means I haven't been around people in awhile.

What a luxury to turn your back on luxury.

Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

Before civilization, artists painted for the living. Today, most paint for a living.

People turned out to be alive. Hitherto he had supposed that they were what he pretended to be - flat pieces of cardboard stamped with a conventional design… there came by no process of reason a conviction that they were human beings with feelings akin to his own.

The only way a man could always be right is to accept it when he is wrong. For when he is right, he is right. And when he is wrong and accepts he is wrong, he is right.

It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget.

If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.

What interests me, personally, is work which in some way, speaks the truth to power…I don’t think we speak the truth to power for power’s ear, but for the ear and the imagination of future generations, who would seek to live in a world free from the malign and self-serving influence of those who wield it.