Society Quotes
Do you hear the people sing?
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT
Society Quotes
Societies, like Jennifer Lawrence on the red carpet, have a habit of rising and falling. Click on any society quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."Source: Quoted in The Gospel According to Coco Chanel : Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman (2009) | Speaker: Coco Chanel
"A lion does not ask permission before he eats a zebra."Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood
"And they brought us whole binders full of women."Source: 2012 Presidential Debate | Speaker: Mitt Romney
"Any mean thing someone's gonna think of to say about me, I've already said to me, about me. Probably in the last half hour."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
"Anything. Can be a slam. Poem. If you say it like this."Source: Parks and Recreation | Speaker: Leslie Knope
"Chivalry is not only dead, it's decomposed."Source: The Palm Beach Story | Speaker: John D. Hackensacker III
"Do not call for Black power or green power. Call for brain power."Source: Campus Speeches, Quoted in the Chicago Tribune | Author: Barbara Jordan
"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."Source: 1896 Letter to Booker T. Washington | Author: George Washington Carver
"Everyone keeps saying that. It must be a conspiracy."Source: Jessica Jones | Speaker: Jessica Jones
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."Source: The Silence of the Lambs | Speaker: Dr. Hannibal Lecter
"I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys "R" Us kid."Source: Toys "R" Us Commercial | Author: James Patterson
"I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom."Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | Author: Frederick Douglass
"I might love the people upstairs more If only they lived on another floor."Source: The People Upstairs | Author: Ogden Nash
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"Source: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Author: J.K. Rowling
"I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
"I would rather be with the people of this town than with the finest people in the world."Source: Roxanne | Speaker: Mayor Deebs
"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith
"I'm an adult, and I'm responsible. Let's go get some candy."Source: Broad City | Speaker: Abbi Jacobson
"I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts."Source: "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" | Speaker: Danny Kaye
"I've got no strings to hold me down, to make me fret, or make me frown."Source: I've Got No Strings | Speaker: Pinocchio
"If you're a prince, there's hope for every ape in Africa."Source: The Lion in Winter | Speaker: Prince Geoffrey
"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."Source: Quoted in Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) | Speaker: Coco Chanel
"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."Source: 1965 Speech | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher
"In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."Source: The Third Man | Speaker: Harry Lime
"It keeps going and going and going..."Source: Energizer Commercials | Speaker: Commercial Narrator
"It's not the men in your life that counts. It's the life in your men."Source: I'm No Angel | Speaker: Tira
"It's this century. It still does perplex me so."Source: American Horror Story: Coven | Speaker: Delphine LaLaurie
"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"Source: Auntie Mame | Speaker: Mame Dennis
"Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half."Source: Ninotchka | Speaker: Count Leon d'Algout
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."Source: 1965 TV Broadcast | Speaker: J. Robert Oppenheimer
"One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley
"Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind."Source: The Phantom of the Opera (1986 Musical) | Speaker: The Phantom
"Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."Source: Mildred Pierce | Speaker: Ida Corwin
"Politics is the art of the possible."Source: St. Petersburgische Zeitung | Author: Prince Otto von Bismarck
"Private eyes. They're watching you. They see your every move."Source: "Private Eyes" | Speaker: Hall and Oates
"Remember, you're fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did."Source: Duck Soup | Speaker: Rufus T. Firefly
"Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe…"Source: Lawrence of Arabia | Speaker: T.E. Lawrence
"Tell me what you don't like about yourself."Source: Nip/Tuck | Speaker: Sean McNamara and Christian Troy
"The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."Source: Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil | Author: Thomas Hobbes
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."Source: The New Yorker | Author: Hannah Arendt
"The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."Source: On the Road | Author: Jack Kerouac
"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall."Source: Libération | Speaker: Che Guevara
"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him…"Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem | Author: Hannah Arendt
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."Source: Diggers (The Bromeliad Trilogy) | Author: Terry Pratchett
"The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door."Source: True Detective | Speaker: Rust Cohle
"There are some men who don't end every sentence with a proposition."Source: Pillow Talk | Speaker: Jan Morrow
"There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun."Source: "House of the Rising Sun" | Speaker: Unknown
"There is no such thing [as society]!"Source: Interview with Woman's Own magazine in 1987 | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher
"there's a bluebird in my heart that/ wants to get out/ but I'm too tough for him"Source: Bluebird | Author: Charles Bukowski
"There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."Source: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater | Author: Kurt Vonnegut
"Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."Source: Dr. Seuss | Speaker: Dr. Seuss
"Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies."Source: The Thing from Another World | Speaker: Ned "Scotty" Scott
"We accept the love we think we deserve."Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Author: Stephen Chbosky
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us."Source: Speech at the Audubon Ballroom | Speaker: Malcolm X
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."Source: Seduction of the Minotaur | Author: Anaïs Nin
"We just got to go on, that's all. That's what grownups would do."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."Source: "The Celebration of Negro History Week" in The Journal of Negro History | Author: Carter G. Woodson
"What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland."Source: To Be or Not to Be | Speaker: Colonel Ehrhardt
"When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory, too."Source: Cats (1981 Musical) | Speaker: Grizabella
"You are from New York; therefore, you are just naturally interesting."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
"You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything."Source: "Building a Dream" in Oprah Magazine | Speaker: Oprah Winfrey
"You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, 'cause the times they are a-changing."Source: The Times They Are a-Changin' | Speaker: Bob Dylan
"You must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it."Source: Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer | Author: Ogden Nash
"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith
"You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl."Source: Mad Men | Speaker: Joan Holloway
"You're the sanest man that ever walked into this courtroom."Source: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Speaker: Judge May