Institutional Critique Quotes

Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama believe that the problems that exist in our country can be solved by Washington, D.C. My dad believes that the problems in the country are Washington, D.C.

… my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country; not to its institutions or it’s office holders..

The UN system is not very democratic, everyone knows that the Security Council is not democratic.

At the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.

If you want to challenge the system, don't go to bed with it.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed institution.

It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institutions of private property.

I could hardly be called a pillar of the [Anglican] Church. I am more in the nature of a buttress, for I support it from the outside.

School's a weird thing. I'm not sure it works.

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

If it was up to me, there wouldn't be no such thing as the establishment.

Ultimately, policing in and of itself is problematic.

In America, we debate everything except capitalism. If there is an institution in your society that is above criticism, you’re giving it a free pass.

Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

Paranoia is an illness I contracted in institutions. It is not the reason for my sentences to reform school and prison. It is the effect, not the cause.

The Federal Reserve Board is indefensible in theory and indispensable in practice.

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

I learned a lot of good things in my school. I've audited a lot of other schools, and I guess after a while I got a little tired of the acting school atmosphere.

I am pro-education. I'm just anti the system.

The World Bank is just a sponge for every do-good idea of relieving poverty.

I'm impatient not with the House of Commons as an institution, but with the way in which it is operated. This doesn't prove I don't believe in participatory democracy.

If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

There are lots of things one can criticise about the European parliament, but it does work pretty well in terms of the speed with which you can vote, the fact that there's room to sit, the fact that there are offices when you arrive.

The minimum that most minimalists want leaves in place just the institutions who protect their interests. That's libertarians for you…