Society

It is our destiny to be born beautiful into an ugly age. – Henry Rollins

Noise, crowding, pollution, and the sheer rush of our complex, modern society are rapidly becoming as oppressive to many individuals as the worst kind of political dictatorship. – Thomas F. Eagleton

The public is hedged about by so many goddam bookkeepers that no time is left in which to produce. More time is spent in carrying out garbage than in carrying in food. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)

Beggars should be abolished. It annoys one to give to them, and it annoys one not to give to them. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “On the Pitying,” Thus Spake Zarathustra

Complication has penetrated everywhere. Few people have an immediate insight into moral truth such as nature has revealed it. Almost all men, even the least cultivated, only see invisible things through phrases. Intuition is very rare, ready-made phrases are common and cheap. – Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847), Philosophy. First Section: Pure Philosophy. C

Junk mail, junk food, our society is full of junk living, period. – Terri Guillemets

We have smothered ourselves, buried ourselves, in the vast heap of information which all of us have and none of us has. – Gamaliel Bradford

I believe… that security declines as security machinery expands. – E.B. White

If some people got their rights they would complain of being deprived of their wrongs. – Oliver Herford

Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers. – Mignon McLaughlin

Most people know more about their own elected officials via smear campaigns than they know about their own neighbors via conversation, and many know more about the celebrities via tabloids than they know about their own representatives via voting booklets. – Terri Guillemets, 2007

There are more doctors in a single North Shore medical building than in one entire West Side ghetto. – Jack Starr

You make me sick! You are offered meat and you choose a banana-split-with-nuts. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on the human face â€” forever. – George Orwell

The year is 2006. The world has changed in about 364 significant ways since you started reading this sentence. – Terri Guillemets

My meaningless office job: they pay me for my body and mind, but my heart gets no paycheck and my soul pays the taxes. – Carrie Latet, 2006

Everything is for the eye these days â€” TV, Life, Look, the movies. Nothing is just for the mind. The next generation will have eyeballs as big as cantaloupes and no brain at all. – Fred Allen

There comes a time when a woman needs to stop thinking about her looks and focus her energies on raising her children. This time comes at the moment of conception. A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. – Terri Guillemets

Living in this modern toxic world, we are all slowly being poisoned to death. – Carrie Latet, 2006

Death is losing its terror. It is the emergency exit for a world that is becoming more frightening death ever was. – Julian Green, Diary, 1958 December 28