I like working-class people, generally speaking.

There’s no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively – I am one with the people.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

People from North India are generally known to be aggressive and emotional.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

Our modern society – especially in the West, and especially now – reveres youth.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

What I hate is nasty, ugly people.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

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

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization.

The only thing I can say is that I like people; I like human beings with their faults and with their strengths.

We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

I have this feeling that the world is not in balance. And people are afraid, but we’re also starting to be really brave.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

The real minimum wage is zero.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.