Iain Pears Quotes

The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place.

Iain Pears

• Society
• Action
• Purpose
• Philosophy
• Civilization

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.

  

  J. C. Watts
  • Up
  • Growing
  • Action

• Of course, giving is deeply emotional. But supplementing emotion with research makes it more likely that a gift can have a bigger impact. It's like any investment. After all, you wouldn't put funds into stocks or bonds without understanding the potential return. Why wouldn't you do the same when investing in society?

  

  Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
  • Why
  • Society
  • Giving

• Truth in our society often takes a back seat to securing gainful consequences.

  

  Pamela Meyer
  • Truth
  • Society
  • Consequences

• The music comes through me, and I let it come the way it comes, and it shapes itself. I just hold space for it. I don't intend to write it for a purpose, but it comes as it comes and am proud of the way it can support change because I believe strongly in what I sing about.

  

  Xavier Rudd
  • Music
  • Believe
  • Change

• Together we will act to bring about national reconciliation, secure Malaysia's economic future, and build a stronger, more harmonious society.

  

  Najib Razak
  • Together
  • Future
  • Society

• Do our children now have to choose between getting an education and dying? Some of us cannot move on and accept that kind of society.

  

  Obiageli Ezekwesili
  • Children
  • Society
  • Education

• I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.

  

  Ice Cube
  • Up
  • Music
  • Society

• Our enemies can deal a blow to us any time they wish. They did not wait for permission to do this. They do not deal a blow with prior notice. They do not take action because they can't.

  

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
  • Time
  • Action
  • Wish

• Artists are political in the sense that they've subtracted themselves from the structure of the marketplace and are contributing something that's not utilitarian. Even though books get sold, and I get advances, I get to look at society and think for a living.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Think
  • Society
  • Political

• Rising anti-Semitism is rarely the lone or the last expression of intolerance in a society.

  

  Samantha Power
  • Society
  • Expression
  • Last

• As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.

  

  Sam Hunt
  • Writing
  • True
  • Song

• As a matter of personal philosophy, I have generally said, 'Why not?' far more often than either 'Why?' or 'Not.'

  

  Rachel Sklar
  • Why
  • Philosophy
  • Said

• What 'Deadwood' did was to talk about how capitalism started, how civilised society came in, and how that brought its own problems.

  

  Ian McShane
  • Society
  • Talk
  • Capitalism

• If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.

  

  Zig Ziglar
  • God
  • Live
  • Society

• Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.

  

  Hannah Arendt
  • Action
  • Name
  • Without

• The 'Dog's Purpose' premise has gotten me so many emails and comments from people who say that their dog is so much like one they had when they were young or years before, that it seems like the truth. The idea that you would come across an old friend later in life.

  

  W. Bruce Cameron
  • People
  • Life
  • Truth

• Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

  

  Malcolm Fraser
  • Heart
  • Change
  • Action

• When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled.

  

  J. William Fulbright
  • Men
  • Society
  • Democracy

• Mankind will possess incalculable advantages and extraordinary control over human behavior when the scientific investigator will be able to subject his fellow men to the same external analysis he would employ for any natural object, and when the human mind will contemplate itself not from within but from without.

  

  Ivan Pavlov
  • Mankind
  • Behavior
  • Analysis

• ¿Y para qué debo arrepentirme de lo que he hecho, si no puedo dejar de hacer lo que hago, que es lo que he hecho?

  

  Antonio Porchia

• We feel most small, we feel most challenged when we're only focusing on ourselves. Because even when you fulfill yourself, meaning you get what you think you want, you still find yourself in a position where it's never enough.

  

  Anthony Robbins
  • Thinking
  • Feels
  • Enough

• The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

  

  Jimmy Carter
  • Future
  • Control
  • Energy Crises

• I think at its most mature, love is a very bourgeois state. There is something about luxuriating in the nest of love that people fall into naturally.

  

  Alexandra Cassavetes
  • People
  • Fall

• The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place.

  

  Iain Pears
  • Society
  • Action
  • Purpose