Social Conditions Quotes

I am guiding you to seek truth from the facts of the historical conditions of our society and to identify the problems. The correct solutions will come with the correct identification of the problems.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

Everyone, without distinction as to economic and social conditions, has the right to the preservation of his health through the highest standards of food, clothing, housing and medical care which the resources of the State and community can provide. The responsibility of the State and community for the health and safety of its people can be fulfilled only by provision of adequate health and social measures

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit, to society, and scattered with equal hand throughout all its conditions.

In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, everyone who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find the enviable existence

On Positive Liberty: The business of the State is to use its organizing powers for the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people freely to unfold its creative faculties.

There is no limit to the ingenuity of man if it is properly applied under conditions of peace and justice.

Rage is by no means an automatic reaction to misery and suffering as such; no one reacts with rage to an incurable disease or to an earthquake or, for that matter, to social conditions that seem to be unchangeable. Only where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not does rage arise.

Social conditions that spur large numbers of people into action are ignored in favor of a Hollywood version of history focusing on one conquering hero. Since a movement for social change is embodied in its leader, death of the leader means death of the movement.

Education ... is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery.

I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.

… it must be borne in mind that we have in the South a peculiar and unprecedented state of things. It is of the utmost importance that our energy be given to meeting conditions that exist right about us rather than conditions that existed centuries ago or that exist in countries a thousand miles away. What are the cardinal needs among the colored people in the South, most of whom are to be found on the plantations? Roughly, these needs may be stated as food, clothing, shelter, education, proper habits, and a settlement of race relations …

We have to recognise, that the gin-palace, like many other evils, although as poisonous, is still a natural outgrowth of our social conditions. The tap-room in many cases is the poor man's only parlour. Many a man takes to beer, not from the love of beer, but from a natural craving for the light, warmth, company, and comfort which is thrown in along with the beer, and which he cannot get excepting by buying beer. Reformers will never get rid of the drink shop until they can outbid it in the subsidiary attractions which it offers to its customers.

Freedom demands conditions of an economic, social, political and cultural kind which makes possible its full exercise.

We have restored order and established domestic tranquility. We have fed the starving, clothed the naked, and ministered to the sick. We have improved the sanitary condition of the island. We have stimulated industry, introduced public education, taken a full and comprehensive enumeration of the inhabitants

It was not until I got down to Latin America that I began to get a political education. Whatever my ideas when I went down there, I saw things around me every day that influenced me. I saw the terrible economic and social conditions, and the injustices that could not be ignored.

Terrorism cannot be fought successfully without news media that are free to enquire into the causes of terrorism, and the political and social condition in which it thrives

Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society... Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

Building a police culture that reflects the professionalism of our best officers will require that we pay a decent wage. Treating every American as truly equal in the eyes of the law will require that we teach officers to understand different cultures and social conditions and to recognize the implicit biases we all carry.

Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself. One of the first moves of a dictatorship is to stifle the artists and thinkers who have the ability to stir up dissent from any prescribed dogma which might enslave them. Because the artist can arouse the curiosity and conscience of his community, he becomes a threat to those who have taken power.

Improvement in social conditions will not compensate for a bad hereditary influence.

A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions. […] Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion.

The physician must give heed to the region in which the patient lives, that is to say, to its type and peculiarities.