Classification, [Elsie Clews] Parsons observes, is not just what we do with others but what we do with ourselves in our struggle for belonging and self-inclusion — a struggle that sometimes metastasizes into a tendency toward punitive exclusion directed at those we place outside the boundaries of our self-elected classifications.
Authors: Elsie Clews Parsons, Maria Popova | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior
Conspicuous consumption, conspicuous waste is in all classes a manifestation of the will to power.
Author: Elsie Clews Parsons | Subjects: Concepts, Consumerism, Economics | Economy, Life & Society, Power
The preeminent function of social classification appears therefore to be social rule… Classification is nine-tenths of subjection. Indeed to rule over another successfully you have only to see to it that he keeps his place — his place as a male, her place as a female, his or her place as a junior, as a subject or servant or social “inferior” of any kind, as … [ Read more ]
Author: Elsie Clews Parsons | Subjects: Life & Society, Power, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology
Society has discovered discrimination as the great social weapon by which one may kill men without any bloodshed.
Author: Hannah Arendt | Subject: Life & Society
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as … [ Read more ]
Author: George Bernard Shaw | Subjects: Happiness, Life & Society, Personal Improvement
Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.
Author: Abraham Maslow | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior
…that is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away.
Authors: Louis de Bernières, Shawn Slovo | Source: Dr. Iannis (Pelagia’s father) in the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) | Subject: Love
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
Author: John Donne | Subjects: Individuality, Life & Society
The gains of idealists are short-lived unless and until they can be backed by law.
Author: Richard Crouter | Note(s): Discussing Reinhold Niebuhr | Subjects: Dreams, Philosophy
In some ways the health of a society can be measured by how many avenues to self-importance it opens up.
Author: David Brooks | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Author: Oscar Wilde | Subjects: Desires, Life & Society
Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Author: Horace Walpole | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
You’re not ready to live your life until you know what you want written on your tombstone.
Author: Charlie Jones | Subjects: Insight, Life & Society, Meaning, Wisdom
But I say to the young: Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, and imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.
Author: Eleanor Roosevelt | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
Just beyond the horizon of current events lie two possible political futures – both bleak, neither democratic. The first is a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states in which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against tribe – a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against every kind … [ Read more ]
Author: Benjamin R. Barber | Subjects: Culture, International
Persons who are either too wealthy or too happy in their own lives tend to lose the need of love. It should also serve as a warning that those who are prone to love are equally prone to fear.
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Fear, Love
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody’s else advice.
Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Experience, Learning, Personal Improvement
It is both astonishing and depressing that so much of the energy of mankind has gone into fighting for…the truth of creeds, religious, moral and political, as distinct from what has gone into effort to try creeds by putting them to the test of acting upon them.
Author: John Dewey | Subjects: Culture, Psychology | Behavior
Service is the rent that we pay for our room on earth.
Author: Lord Halifax | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Perspective, Wisdom
The cult of the amateur is digital utopianism’s most seductive delusion. This cult promises that the latest media technology—in the form of blogs, wikis and podcasts— will enable everyone to become widely-read writers, journalists, movie directors and music artists. It suggests, mistakenly, that everyone has something interesting to say.
Author: Andrew Keen | Subjects: Communication, IT | Technology, Life & Society, Miscellaneous