Clever Society Quotes & Sayings

Trying to create an overly flattened society inevitably and unintentionally creates new centers of power. A revolution might dethrone the old rich, but only at the expense of empaneling an unchallenged communist party, along with a politburo and legions of clever schemers and ass kissers who turn into a new privileged class. The right way to deal with concentrations of power is not to try to vaporize them, but to balance them. — Jaron Lanier

Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature. — George Gissing

Fairytales teach children that the world is fraught with danger, including life-threatening danger; but by being clever (always), honest (as a rule, but with common-sense exceptions), courteous (especially to the elderly, no matter their apparent social station), and kind (to anyone in obvious need), even a child can succeed where those who seem more qualified have failed.
And this precisely what children most need to hear.
To let them go on believing that the world is safe, that they will be provided for and achieve worthwhile things even if they remain stupid, shirk integrity, despise courtesy, and act only from self-interest, that they ought to rely on those stronger, smarter, and more able to solve their problems, would be the gravest disservice: to them, and to society as a whole.
-On the Supposed Unsuitability of Fairytales for Children — J. Aleksandr Wootton

I gave you all!" screeched Lear, waving a palsied claw at Regan.
"And you took your bloody time giving it, too, you senile old fuck," said Regan. — Christopher Moore

Time will come and some people will be proud of themselves that they have never believed in any religion! This honour will be belonging to the clever people of the society only! For the others, merely the deep shame will remain! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered. — Stendhal

As the Laurel-wreathed boxes come down to Gamma, I think about how clever it really is. They won't let us win the Laurel. They don't care that the math doesn't work. They don't care that the young scream in protest and the old moan their same tired wisdoms. This is just a demonstration of their power. It is their power. They decide the winner. A game of merit won by birth. It keeps the hierarchy in place. It keeps us striving, but never conspiring.

Yet despite the disappointment, some part of us doesn't blame the Society. We blame Gamma, who receives the gifts. A man's only got so much hate, I suppose. And when he sees his children's ribs through their shirts while his neighbors line their bellies with meat stews and sugared tarts, it's hard for him to hate anyone but them. You think they'd share. They don't. — Pierce Brown

Uh huh, you sure can, Mr. Man," the heftier girl said smacking her lips. She expressively started to wave her long fingernail in his face. "You that actor that is fucking Lailiana ain't you." "Ethiopia! How you gonna ask the man who he fucking?" "Shit, why can't I? That's what he doing! That's what I heard he doing. He grown. He can answer for himself." First of all, who the hell does shit like that? Secondly, did she just say that the big tittied heifer's name is Ethiopia? — Will Blue

I am not worried about pleasing clever minds or fashionable people. In every period there will be men fated to be governed by the opinions of their century, their country, and their society. For that very reason, a freethinker or philosopher today would have been nothing but a fanatic at the time of the League.* One must not write for such readers, if one wishes to live beyond one's own age. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We are shocked by thieves taking pride in their clever touch, prostitutes in their depravity and murderers in their callousness. But it is shocking only because the atmosphere of the circles they move in is restricted, and - what matters most - we are on the outside. But isn't the same thing happening when rich men take pride in their wealth (which is theft), military commanders in their victories (which are murder) and rulers in their power (which is violence)? We do not see them as people who corrupt the concept of life, or good and evil, in order to justify their own situation, but only because the circles of people who share these corrupt concepts are wider, and we belong to them. — Leo Tolstoy

And if her heart was breaking with every step she took, at least he would never know. — Susan Andersen

She never indulged in reveries or tried to be clever in her conversation; she seemed to have drawn a line in her mind beyond which she never went. It was quite obvious that feelings, every kind of relationship, including love, entered into her life on equal terms with everything else, while in the case of other women love quite manifestly takes part, if not in deeds, then in words, in all the problems of life, and everything else is allowed in only in so far as love leaves room for it. The thing this woman esteemed most was the art of living, of being able to control oneself, of keeping a balance between thought and intention, intention and realization. You could never take her unawares, by surprise, but she was like a watchful enemy whose expectant gaze would always be fixed on you, however hard you tried to lie in wait for him. High society was her element, and therefore tact and caution prompted her every thought, word, and movement. — Ivan Goncharov

We're creating a dystopia, where the mania of the state isn't secrecy or censorship but unfairness. Obsessed with success and wealth and despising failure and poverty, our society is systematically dividing the population into winners and losers, using institutions like the courts to speed the process. Winners get rich and get off. Losers go broke and go to jail. It isn't just that some clever crook on Wall Street can steal a billion dollars and never see the inside of a courtroom; it's that, plus the fact that some black teenager a few miles away can go to jail just for standing on a street corner, that makes the whole picture complete. — Matt Taibbi

There are so many charlatans in the world of education. They teach for a couple of years, come up with a few clever slogans, build their websites, and hit the lecture circuit. In this fast-food-society, simple solutions to complex problems are embraced far too often. We can do better. I hope that people who read this book realize that true excellence takes sacrifice, mistakes, and enormous amounts of effort. After all, there are no shortcuts. — Rafe Esquith

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don't crush them with some clever remark straight away. — Prince Charles

Family life in Western society since the time of the Old Testament has been a struggle to maintain patriarchy, male domination, and double standards in the face of a natural drift towards monogamous bonding. Young men have been called upon to prove their masculinity by their willingness to die in warfare, and young women have been called upon to prove their femininity by their willingness to die for their man. Women have been asked to appear small, dumb, and helpless so men would feel big and strong, brave, and clever. It's been a trick. — Frank Pittman

At that level through out the 18th century, another vision of admirable behavior persisted. The mob did not want the smooth conformable man, the slick hypocrite who could so politely maneuver his way into the rewards of high politics and high society. They wanted his very opposite, the clever thief. The man who thrived not by using the well oiled wheels of society but by opposing them and cheating them; by attending to the well-being of his own heroic self. — Adam Nicolson

Programmers are isolated. They sit in their cubicle; they don't think about the larger picture. To my mind, a programmer is not an engineer, because an engineer is somebody who starts with a social problem that an organization or a society has and says, "OK, here's this problem that we have- how can we solve it?" The engineer comes up with a clever, cost-effective solution to address that problem, builds it, tests it to make sure it solves the problem. That's engineering. — Philip Greenspun

The substance of the attacks on the reality of organized abuse and torture of children always reduce to that old chestnut - it is unscientific. "Give us proof," say the naysayers. "How is this different from reports of alien abduction?" say the clever-clever wags of Private Eye. Indeed. How is it different? In the case of alien abduction, we are asked to believe that visitors to this planet from outer space have kidnapped someone, taken them away, and brought them back. It is not believable.

In the case of ritual abuse, we are asked to believe that people can organize themselves into groups for the purpose of torturing children. There would seem to be a significant difference here in what we are asked to believe. — Valerie Sinason

One problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious ... Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart. — Dalai Lama XIV

The criminalization of debt, then, was the criminalization of the very basis of human society. It cannot be overemphasized that in a small community, everyone normally was both a lender and borrower. One can only imagine the tensions and temptations that must have existed in a community - and communities, much though they are based on love, in fact because they are based on love, will always also be full of hatred, rivalry and passion - when it became clear that with sufficiently clever scheming, manipulation, and perhaps a bit of strategic bribery, they could arrange to have almost anyone they hated imprisoned or even hanged. — David Graeber

So what was in this building before historical materialism?'
'Before what?'
'You know, back then, under the old regime?'
'Oh. Under the old regime my master lived here.'
'A bourgeois?'
'You're a bourgeois yourself! He wasn't a bourgeois. He was a marshal of the nobility.'
'So he was a proletarian, then?'
'You're a proletarian yourself! I told you loud and clear, a marshal.'
The conversation with the clever dvornik with a vague understanding of the class structure of society would have lasted god knows how long if the young man hadn't made a decisive move. — Ilya Ilf

The old family carriage and the two lady's maids were there,
as necessaries of life; but London society was not within her reach. It was therefore the case that they had not heard very much about Lizzie Eustace. But they had heard something. "I hope she won't be too fond of going out," said Amelia, the second girl.
"Or extravagant," said Georgina, the third.
"There was some story of her being terribly in debt when she married Sir Florian Eustace," said Diana, the fourth.
"Frederic will be sure to see to that," said Augusta, the eldest.
"She is very beautiful," said Lydia, the fifth.
"And clever," said Cecilia, the sixth.
"Beauty and cleverness won't make a good wife," said Amelia, who was the wise one of the family.
"Frederic will be sure to see that she doesn't go wrong," said Augusta who was not wise. — Anthony Trollope

People always knock what's new but I love the modern Internet, where cleverness is currency. Social media is a cleverness meritocracy. We're living in it. — Alexei Maxim Russell

The prisons in the United States had long been an extreme reflection of the American system itself: the stark life differences between rich and poor, the racism, the use of victims against one another, the lack of resources of the underclass to speak out, the endless "reforms" that changed little. Dostoevski once said: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people. — Howard Zinn

When you're feeding the second coachload of tourists that day you aren't thinking about the birthday party for fifty next week. — Robin McKinley

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization - including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain - without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. — Thomas Sowell

It's a tricky, complex, indifferent society, Puss. It's a loophole world. And there are a lot of clever animals who know how to reach through the loopholes and pick the pockets of the unsuspecting. — John D. MacDonald

I never tell my age because I hope I'll always be the new kid on the block. — Patrick Kelly

In a stupid society, a clever man can come into the power; but in a clever society no stupid can come into the power! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The weak and the poor are for us a source of unity. Jesus came into the world to change and transform society from a "pyramid" in which the strong and clever dominate at the top, into a "body", where each member of society has a place, is respected and is important. — Jean Vanier

Her simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified. — Virginia Woolf