Quotes by Social Critics - Page 16

Life humbles the rich by giving them problems that money can’t resolve, or, dissolve.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Getting older comes with abilities. Being old comes with disabilities.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.
Lillian E. Smith
Some people would not be dead if they have not gotten the things or people they had prayed for.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.
Cornel West
The missile crisis "was the most dangerous moment in human history," Arthur Schlesinger commented in October 2002 at a conference in Havana on the fortieth anniversary of the crisis, attended by a number of those who witnessed it from within as it unfolded. Desision-makers at the time undoubtedly understood that the fate of the world was in their hands. Nevertheless, attendees at the conference may have been shocked by some of the revelations. They were informed that in October 1962 the world was "one word away" from nuclear war. "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world," said Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive in Washington, which helped organize the event. He was referring to Vasil Arkhipov, a Soviet submarine officer blocked an order to fire nuclear-armed toredoes in October 27, at the tensest moment of the crisis, when te submarines were under attack bu US destroyers, A devastating response would have been a near certainty, leading a major war. Pg 74, Penguin Publication
Noam Chomsky
Whenever He answers prayers, God usually prioritizes those by people who, instead of their mouths, have prayed with their hands and/or feet.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some people would not have remained with their partners, if the unfortunate things that have happened to them had happened to their partners, or if the fortunate things that have happened to their partners had happened to them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Famine sometimes increases the number of people who are overweight.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Overrated is order.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Marriage is the commodification of affection, copulation, and, reproduction.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Passing their toilet training is the very last thing that some adults did that has made their parents proud of them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A truly compassionate man gives a poor woman a portion of his meal before he eats, not after he has eaten.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is good for a student to be poor. Getting and spending, the typical American college student lays waste his powers. Work and contemplation don't mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation.
Russell Kirk
For an entrepreneur: wealth invites fame. For a celebrity: fame invites wealth.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A promotion is an illusionary solution out of an indebted employee’s pit of debt.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You are. Before you are whatever you are labeled.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
More people would be depressed, if parents tried to please their children as frequently and as badly as children try to please their parents.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We’re beings towards death, we’re featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That’s us.
Cornel West
We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief.
Noam Chomsky
Employment frees man from the nightmare of unemployment, while it chains him to his employer’s dream.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if a few corporations control the information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, explains that “the very essence of the democratic process” is “the freedom to persuade and suggest,” what he calls “the engineering of consent.” “A leader,” he continues, “frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding … Democratic leaders must play their part in … engineering … consent to socially constructive goals and values,” applying “scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs”; and although it remains unsaid, it is evident enough that those who control resources will be in a position to judge what is “socially constructive,” to engineer consent through the media, and to implement policy through the mechanisms of the state. If the freedom to persuade happens to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is the nature of a free society.
Noam Chomsky
Some people wouldn’t still be sane, if they were not religious or superstitious; some wouldn’t be disabled or dead.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Shyness is a luxury reserved for those who are above the poverty line. To a beggar, being shy is deadly.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Immediately after a divorce or a breakup, your mind whispers that there are plenty more fish in the sea, while your heart shouts that there is only one whoever-you-just-divorced-or-broke-up-with.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In a society where women are truly equal to men, a kid bred by a theist mother and an atheist father is born an agnostic. In a patriarchal society, the kid is automatically an atheist.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A tomboy is a bisexual girl’s dream lover.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Sun glasses are the unofficial celebrities’ uniform.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I remember the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked why he spent his time protesting against nuclear war and getting arrested on demonstrations. Why didn’t he continue to work on the serious philosophical and logical problems which have major intellectual significance? And his answer was pretty good. He said: “Look, if I and others like me only work on those problems, there won’t be anybody around to appreciate it or be interested.
Chomsky Noam
You can only manage to convince a person to admit to being wrong, not ignorant, arrogant, or stupid.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Because “we human beings are imaginative by nature, we cannot choose to live by the routine of the ant-heap. If deprived of the imagery of virtue” — imaginative depictions of the truly good life — “we will seek out the imagery of vice.
Russell Kirk
Other than the promise of life after death, nothing consoles the poor better than the fact that rich people are also subject to death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science. It would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.
Noam Chomsky
A phone call should be a convenience to the caller, not an inconvenience to the called.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We envy people who are extremely old because we wish to live that long, not because we want to be that old.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like "What I'm Going to be If I Grow Up
Lenny Bruce
Almost all important questions are important precisely because they are not susceptible to quantitative answer.
Arthur Schlesinger
Reality is what people who lack vision see.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Friends are family members we have a choice over.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If love wasn't conditional, everybody would be in love with everybody.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Love songs are nothing without exaggeration.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Public opinion is to an unconventional idea … what abortion is to sperm.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A poor but confident man is as hard to find as a rich but shy man.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A maid’s yard, house, wardrobe, fridge, etc. sometimes also serve as her master’s dustbin or dumpsite.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
As useful as an unhappy artist. As useless as a happy philosopher.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He who makes $25,000 annually through passive income is more enviable than he who earns $100,000 annually through a salary.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most adults are knowledgeable to a child, but ignorant for their age.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It was masturbation, not willpower, that made it possible for gazillions of women to walk down the aisle with their reputation and their hymen still intact.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Sniffing glue is a homeless nonbeliever's prayer.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The only road to freedom is self-education in art. Art is not a luxury for any advancedcivilization; it is a necessity, without which creative intelligence will wither and die. Evenin economically troubled times, support for the arts should be a national imperative.Dance, for example, requires funding not only to secure safe, roomy rehearsal space butto preserve the indispensible continuity of the teacher-student link. American culture hasbecome unbalanced by its obsession with the blood sport of politics, a voracious vortexconsuming everything in its path. History shows that, for both individuals and nations,political power is transient. America's true legacy is its ideal of liberty, which has inspiredinsurgencies around the world. Politicians and partisans of both the Right and the Leftmust recognize that art too is a voice of liberty, requiring nurture without intrusion. Artunites the spiritual and material realms. In an age of alluring, magical machines, thesociety that forgets art risks losing its soul.
Camille Paglia
The ritual denunciation of the so-called ‘socialist’ states is replete with distortions and often outright lies.
Noam Chomsky
A paedophile is someone whose sexual attraction towards children their own age did not grow with them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Many of the boys and men who are regarded as immature by some females are so deemed merely because they do not want to get married someday … or soon.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Employees go to school for 12 – 18 years merely to impress prospect employers in a 12 – 18 minutes interview.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Marketing is so powerful that it can make even an extremely untalented musician a one-hundred-hits wonder.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If human beings were really progressive creatures, then all boys would be smarter, healthier, and, wealthier, than their grandfathers.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.
Noam Chomsky