75+ Best Society Quotes About The World We Live In

Society can be described as a group of people who share a common spatial territory, have similar cultural practices, and interact on a regular basis.

Societies have been present since the dawn of time. The very early ones comprised of hunter-gatherers, which then transformed into pastoral societies, and eventually, agrarian and feudal societies came into being.

Still later emerged industrial societies and what we now have are primarily information societies. Overall, the level of development and technological advancement is what forms the basis of classification of societies.

Society has been a subject of extensive study, consequently, numerous inspirational and famous society quotes and sayings can be found, which tell us a huge deal about the community we live in.

If you like what you read, then do check out our community quotes and sociology quotes as well.

Insightful Quotes About Society

Here are some inspirational society quotes you can read and share with others. What will you learn from these society quotes?

1. "The society must be better than the individual."

- Governor Mike Morris, 'The Ides Of March', 2011.

2. "Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life."

- Letitia E. Landon.

3. "Man was formed for society and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it."

- William Blackstone.

4. "Society is our extended mind and body."

- Alan Watts.

5. "We must reform society before we can reform ourselves."

- George Bernard Shaw.

6. "...the new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged."

- Nelson Mandela.

7. "Music moves society more than most people realize. In my opinion, it's a soft manipulator of influence and change."

- Kim Harrison.

8. "The key to organizing an alternative society is to organize people around what they can do, and more importantly, what they want to do."

- Abbie Hoffman.

9. "Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are."

- John W. Gardner.

10. "No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded."

- Margaret Mead.

11. "We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear."

- Nelson Mandela.

12. "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both."

- C. Wright Mills.

13. "Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change."

- Jose Saramago.

14. "Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes."

- Henry George.

15. "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."

- Nelson Mandela.

16. "If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed."

- Madonna.

17. "In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create."

- Raoul Vaneigem.

18. "The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow by the tilt of the social landscape."

- Eric Hoffer.

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

- Adam Smith.

20. "A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable."

- John Rawls.

21. "Under any system of society... the family holds the future in its bosom."

- Charles Franklin Thwing.

22. "No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

23. "We must work together to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth, opportunity and power in our society."

- Nelson Mandela.

24. "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

- John F. Kennedy.

25. "All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual."

- Albert Einstein.

26. "A great step forward was made the day men understood that in order to torment one another more efficiently they would have to gather together, to organize themselves into a society."

- Emil Cioran.

27. "Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."

- Karl Marx.

28. "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

- Isaac Asimov.

29. "It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned, I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society."

- Alice Paul.

30. "A good person can make another person good; it means that goodness will elicit goodness in the society; other persons will also be good."

- Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Iconic Society Quotes And Sayings

Here's some society quotes that reflect what some famous personalities have to say about society. Which of these society quotes is your favorite?

31. "Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection."

- Francis Bacon.

32. "That is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!"

- Margaret Mitchell.

33. "All societies end up wearing masks."

- Jean Baudrillard.

34. "Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death."

- Andre Gide.

35. "What passed for society was a loud, giddy whirl of thieves and pretentious hustlers, a dull sideshow full of quacks and clowns..."

- Hunter S. Thompson.

36. "The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

37. "Society is composed of two great classes - those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners."

- Nicolas Chamfort.

38. "Cinema will always have an important role to play in society."

- Leslie Caron.

39. "There is little chance for a person to exercise the imagination today in this complex, programmed society we have."

- Peter Cushing.

40. "I think this society suffers so much from too much freedom, too many rights that allow people to be irresponsible."

- Boyd Rice.

41. "We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves."

- Marilyn Manson.

42. "It is so easy for society to shock the people who are not in it."

- Edgar Watson Howe.

43. "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves..."

- Thomas Jefferson.

44. "The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age."

- Orson Welles.

45. "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."

- Robert A. Heinlein.

46. "In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay."

- Ernst Fischer.

47. "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."

- Plutarch.

48. "In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

49. "A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality."

- Alfred Hitchcock.

50. "Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

- John Adams.

51. "For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature..."

- William Blackstone.

52. "Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."

- John Adams.

53. "The societies to which I have been exposed seemed to me largely machines for the suppression of women."

- Cormac McCarthy.

54. "The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose."

- James Baldwin.

55. "Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom."

- B. F. Skinner.

56. "Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also."

- Charles Horton Cooley.

57. "We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker."

- Ronald Reagan.

58. "The sign of a good society is where talent is respected."

- Irrfan Khan.

59. "The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against."

- Henrik Ibsen.

60. "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."

- John Lennon.

61. "Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

- Vince Lombardi.

Society Quotes From The Silver Screen And Television

Movie and TV have given some powerful society quotes to reflect on! Do you recognize any of these society quotes?

62. "We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be given the rights of a human being, to be respected as a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence."

- Malcolm X, 'Malcolm X', 1992.

63. "The only limits on scientific progress are those imposed by society."

- Nikola Tesla, 'The Prestige', 2006.

64. "The first time I changed the world, I was hailed as a visionary. The second time I was asked politely to retire. Society tolerates only one change at a time."

- Nikola Tesla, 'The Prestige', 2006.

65. "I service society by rocking, ok? I'm out there on the front lines liberating people with my music!"

- Dewey Finn, 'School Of Rock', 2003.

66. "I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am."

- Duke, 'Repo Man', 1984.

67. "To succeed in polite society, a young woman must be many things. Kind... well-read... and accomplished. But to survive in the world as we know it, you'll need... other qualities."

- Elizabeth Bennet, 'Pride And Prejudice And Zombies', 2016.

68. "The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers."

- X, 'JFK,' 1991.

69. "Marriage is an institution. It's the bedrock of society."

- Carmine Sabatini, 'The Freshman', 1990.

70. "Katherine Valentine: How can a society so advanced, so scientific, be so stupid?

Tom Natsworthy: Well, no more stupid than people today."

- 'Mortal Engines', 2018.

71. "What we need to do is to put an end to all this barbarity. Put an end to all this violence - find a solution for it. By inventing a new society."

- Hermann Kermit Warm, 'The Sisters Brothers', 2018.

72. "Sometimes society looks upon people as crazy. It may only mean that they are alienated from their own true natures."

- Laszlo Kreizler, 'The Alienist', 2018.

73. "What else is a criminal except somebody who can't function in society?"

- Dr. Wendy Carr, 'Mindhunter', 2017.

74. "I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science."

- Vincent Freeman, 'Gattaca', 1997.

75. "Everything in this room is eatable, even I'm eatable! But that is called 'cannibalism', my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies."

- Willy Wonka, 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory', 2005.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for society quotes then why not take a look at these [Civil Rights quotes], or [social work quotes] for more?