society Quotes

When you try to grasp the way the Western world is going, you see that we are on a ratchet towards a surveillance state, which is coming to include the whole population in its surveillance. This is our reward for accepting the restraints on the way we live now.

The idea that anybody might be allowed to use their common sense when clearly no harm is being done is part of history now.

The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's essentially self-interested on the part of authority.

What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwealth? Is this the wealth we seek to have in common - optimal security at the cost of maximal surveillance?

The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.

Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.

I don't respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.

I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.