45 Society Quotes and Sayings That Will Change Your Outlook on Life

Quotes on society

Society Quotes - Photo by Kaique Rocha from Pexels

Here are some insightful society quotes for you to get started with.

• "The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children. — Nelson Mandela

• "Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals." — Oscar Wilde

• "If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments." — Zig Ziglar

• "Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "Society lives by faith, and develops by science." — Henri Frederic Amiel

• "Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice." — George Orwell

• "Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units." — Valerie Solanas

Quotes about society

• "The great society is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goods than with the quantity of their goods." — Lyndon B. Johnson

• "Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." — John Lennon

• "Society is based on the assumption that everyone is alike and no one is alive." — Hugh Kingsmill

• "We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society." — Angela Davis

• "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." — Adam Smith

• "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." — Carl Sagan

• "All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." — Albert Einstein

• "We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design." — Jacque Fresco

Quotes about the importance of art in society

Society Quotes - Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels

Art influences society by changing opinions, instilling values, and translating experiences across space and time. Learn more about the relationship between the two with these society quotes.

• "Society never advances.  It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.  Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Art and society was a lot more subject to sexism 50 years ago than it is now. Since that period, there have been plenty of very good female painters, 2006 Turner Prize-winner Tomma Abts among them. How much history needs to pass before an artist is called 'great'? That is the real question.” Matthew Slotover

• “The role of art in society differs for every artist.” Maya Lin

• “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.” John F. Kennedy

• “The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.” John F. Kennedy

• “Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement. The artist... faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an offensive state.” John F. Kennedy

• “Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.” John F. Kennedy

• "Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future." — Albert Camus

• “Art thrives on society and society thrives on its art.” Stuart Pearson Wright

• “If we consider art as oxygen in our society, we have to deliver this oxygen.” Marina Abramovic

Dead Poets Society quotes

Society Quotes - Photo by imdb.com

According to educationist, John Dewey, the school is the society itself. So, enjoy these society quotes from the epic movie all of time about platitudes masquerading as a courageous stand in favor of something: doing your own thing.

• “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

• "To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here — that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

• "No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."

• "Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Don't be resigned to that. Break out!"

• “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”

• “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

• “There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.”

• "Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way. Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try."

• “College will probably destroy your love for poetry. Hours of boring analysis, dissection, and criticism will see to that. The college will also expose you to all manner of literature—much of it transcendent works of magic that you must devour; some of it utter dreck that you must avoid like the plague.”

• “... there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular.”

Society of The Spectacle quotes

Society Quotes - Photo by Danilo Ugaddan from Pexels

The Society of the Spectacle is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord, in which the author develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle, defined by the author as “autocratic reign of the market economy.”

• “... just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing.”

• “Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.”

• “The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.”

• “The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.”

• “Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity”

• “The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him.”

• “This society eliminates geographical distance only to produce a new internal separation.”

• “The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive… compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

• “The society whose modernisation has reached the stage of integrated spectacle is characterised by the combined effect of five principal factors: incessant technological renewal, integration of state and economy, generalised secrecy, unanswerable lies, and eternal present . . .”

• “Capital is no longer the invisible center governing the production process; as it accumulates, it spreads to the ends of the earth in the form of tangible objects. The entire expanse of society is its portrait.”