I will not jump with common spirits and rank me with the barbarous multitude.
- Topic: Society
- Location: Bandon, Face Rock, Oregon
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from William Shakespeare
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and teachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence.
A scepter snatched with an unruly hand must be as boisterously maintained as gained; and he that stands upon a slippery place makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.
More Quotes from Bandon
More on Society
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
Fundamentally, there are only to ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation — the technique of the marketplace.
The overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.
To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.
Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it. All that is not a true change will disappear in the future society.
Racism must be opposed by all means that humanity has at its disposal.
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.
It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.