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Social Commentary Quotes

Browse 162 quotes about Social Commentary.

Social Commentary Quotes

“Someone in the women's cell was crying and cursing the fleas. Some whore probably, the kind that would take on anybody. She was no good either. Fabiano wanted to yell to the whole town, to the judge, the chief of police, the priest, and the tax collector, that nobody in there was worth a damn. He, the men squatting around the fire, the drunk, the woman with the fleas —they were all completely worthless, fit only to be hanged.”

ClassJailWorthlessSocial CommentaryInmates
Book:Vidas Secas
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“I know positively - yes Rieux I can say I know the world inside out as no one on earth is free from it. And I know too that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in careless moment we breathe in somebody's face and fasten the infection on him. What's natural is the microbe. All the rest- health integrity purity if you like - is a product of the human will of vigilance that must never falter. The good man the man who infects hardly anyone is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. And it needs tremendous will-power a never ending tension of the mind to avoid such lapses. Yes Rieux it's a wearying business being plague-stricken. But it's still more wearying to refuse to be it. That's why everybody in the world today looks so tired everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us who want to get the plague out of their systems feel such desperate weariness a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death.”

HealthSicknessSocial Commentary
Book:The Plague
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“We call everything 'trauma' now. We call everything 'toxic.' Someone didn't text you back fast enough? They’re toxic. You had a mildly unpleasant conversation with your boss? You’re traumatized. You are stealing the valor of the damned! You are hijacking the vocabulary of the genuinely broken, the people who have survived actual nightmares. People who have looked the absolute worst of humanity in the face and had to figure out how to keep breathing. And you’re using their vocabulary to describe a mild inconvenience? It makes me sick. It’s an insult to the truly ruined.”

PerspectiveIntegrityTraumaResilienceToxicModern SocietySocial CommentaryReality CheckVictimhoodHard Truths
Book:Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”
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“Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of Savesoul's income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all of these, is not Possession the whole of the law?”

MoneyGreedInjusticeMetaphorPossessionColonialismOwnershipSocial CommentaryChattel
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“Did the Ancient Hainish postulate that continuous sexual capacity and organized social aggression, neither of which are attributes of any mammal but man, are cause and effect? Or, like Tumass Song Angot, did they consider war to be a purely masculine displacement-activity, a vast Rape, and therefore in their experiment eliminate the masculinity that rapes and the femineity that is Raped? God knows.”

WarSexScience FictionGenderSexualityGender RolesSocial CommentarySpeculative FictionViolence In Society
Book:The Left Hand of Darkness
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“Men are never selfish. They’re smart. Women are always selfish. You want to be single? Selfish. You’re a wife and mother and do anything other than dote on your husband and children? Selfish. I want you and your sisters to learn to take that word as a compliment. Anyone who says that to you is trying to discourage you from doing what you want. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.”

FeminismIdentityEmpowermentIndependenceSelf DeterminationDefianceGender RolesSocial CommentaryDouble StandardsCritique Of Society
Book:Play Nice
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“Being surveilled with the intention of assault or rape is practically mundane, it happens so often. It's such an ingrained part of the female experience that it doesn't register as unusual. The danger of it, then, is in its routine, in how normalized it is for a woman to feel monitored, so much so that she might not know she's in trouble until that invisible line is crossed from "typical patriarchy" to "you should run.”

FeminismAwarenessEmpowermentSafetyPatriarchyWomen S RightsSocial CommentaryGender Issues
Book:One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
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“Technology, as he saw it, had finally succeeded in shrinking the globe, so much so that every news story felt dangerous and personal, every war a threat to his family, every firestorm, hurricane, and melting ice cap a local disaster, the seas boiling up around them, every cynical political and legal maneuver part of the same rotten fabric - and half the country somehow seeing it exactly the opposite way.”

PoliticsFamilyTechnologyEnvironmentMediaDivisionGlobalizationModern LifeSocial CommentaryFear And Anxiety
Book:So Far Gone
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“But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable. What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.”

HistoryMetaphorColonialismConquestSocial CommentaryColonization
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“Adults often ask me why children in groups are so cruel. I am always astonished by the question. What about groups of adults? What about the Holocaust? What about the Serbs and Croats? How could neighbors who had lived together for hundreds of years suddenly turn on one another and begin to see each other as enemies? Why have Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland been willing to plant bombs in each other’s neighborhoods and kill people only blocks away? What about the Hutus and the Tutsis? During the genocide in Rwanda, a Hutu man beheaded his Tutsi wife and three sons in front of a crowd when the Hutu chief in his town told him that he had to kill all Tutsis. What force could make a person do something like that? Peer pressure. Peer pressure in a horrible group cause.”

ChildrenSocietyAdultsCrueltyPeer PressureSocial Commentary
Book:Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children
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“The Devil's Chapel by Stewart Stafford Spires writhing in audacity's sky, Laced masonry's Faustian high, The Devil's Chapel invites by lie, Embalmed, a cracked stone altar dry. The golden Madonna rises above all, Lucifer's War, in stained glass, tall, In horned shadow, the angelic fall, Dark kingdom formed of a lightning ball. Bartholomew flayed by sadistic chagrin, Bones laid bare, devotion anchored within, Skin in the game took centuries to win, Gargoyles leer in the paying tourist din. Behind the veil of confession wood, The all-seeing eye drips with blood, Trickster's snare in nightmare's flood, A gift shop trades where sacrifice stood. Pungent echoes in incense crawl, Catacombs beckon entombed gall, To witness ornate veneration's pall, Silent to a martyr's last breath call. Croziers rest in chilled silver's display, As pink-veined marble taints today. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

ChristianitySacrificeCorruptionMartyrSocial CommentaryGood Vs EvilChapelDark PoetryGothic HorrorReligious Horror
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Monarchies, dynasties, fairytales ... there is a fine line between these, Harry. The public know our names, they know our faces ... they know our stories – but that is all they are. You see, the media tells its tales about love and patriotism and duty, and that is what the people see, obligingly and obediently.”

HumorPowerMediaHumourSatireRoyaltySocial CommentaryRoyal FamilyMedia Manipulation
Book:Harry Windzor and the Stone of Scone: A Potter Parody and Prince Harry Satire
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“Space Boot Hill: The Urbane Frontier by Stewart Stafford Red hot, white hot, then what? Nostril fleas dancing at dawn, Creating Frankenstein rivals, Great Whites slumming as prawn. Melon farmers of the world unite! We like them big, ripe and juicy, See all the Vegans next Tuesday: Barbara, Doris, Amy and Lucy. And so we dodge the cosmic bullets, Of an Atraxis gunslinger, non-ritual dead, Playing possum, we slip away, Chiming life's aria, eternally spread. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

HumorSpaceHumourScience FictionWesternExistentialismSatireSurrealismSocial CommentaryAbsurdism
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“I don't know what happened, but in a pre-emptive strike, I'm offended on behalf of people who may have been offended even though that wasn't the intention. I'm also offended on behalf of people who may be allergic to apologies. Some people are probably offended by what I've written and I'm also offended on behalf of those people against myself.”

HumorHumourSatirePolitical CorrectnessWokeSocial CommentaryZeitgeistMonty PythonTaking OffenseOverly Sensitive
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Most of those who romanticize female guerrillas in my country also pose as feminists and women's rights advocates. It's particularly disappointing and distressing that this is said by those who wouldn't want to spend even two days in the mountains, those who can't even hold a stick in their hands. The struggle maintains its romanticism thanks to those who do not want to be victims themselves but prefer others to be.”

FeminismSocial CommentaryPolitical Fiction
Book:Ernesto'nun Dağları
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“As long as political movements exercise a fatal attraction for those who seek to drown the sense of personal failure in collective action - as if collective action somehow precluded rigorous attention to the quality of personal life - political movements will have little to say about the personal dimension of social crisis.”

PsychologySocial CommentaryCultural Studies
Book:The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
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“Consider: Anyone can turn his hand to anything. This sounds very simple, but its psychological effects are incalculable. The fact that everyone between seventeen and thirty-five or so is liable to be (as Nim put it) "tied down to childbearing," implies that no one is quite so thoughly "tied down" here as women, elsewhere, are likely to be -- psychologically or physically. Burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the same risk to run or choice to make. Therefore nobody here is quite so free as a free male anywhere else.”

SexSexismGender EqualityGender RolesSocial CommentarySocial Norms
Book:The Left Hand of Darkness
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“Detective Carr sits in his chair. In a way I think it would be terrible to live in LA devoid of aspirations. How would you do it? How would you put up with the traffic and the monotony of the sun, the way people use the word hella and lie so freely? How could you stand it here if you weren't striving for something better? Oh that's right; he liked The Wolf of Wall Street. He aspires to take someone down like me, a serial killer. But he chose the wrong guy. I am done with all that. And I will not let my past dictate my future.”

HumorSatireLos AngelesSerial KillerSocial CommentaryAllusionCaroline KepnesHidden BodiesThe Wolf Of Wall Street
Book:Hidden Bodies
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“Arise Reborn! by Stewart Stafford In cosy choice, the complacent lie, Teasing open the serpent's eye, To outflank, usurp then suppress, A deceiver's mask under duress. Delusion lays a gossamer snare, Flicking forked tongues tasting air, Devotion to clan, a dying dream, Delirious mining of treachery's seam. Battle drums as heroes rise, Saving tribe and land by surprise, The call to action, your country's plea, The broad church of necessity. Lessons echo in infancy's steps, Territory gained, homeland re-annexed, Skirmishes coalesce in a patriot's war, To campfire tales of visionary valour. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

InspirationalHopeStruggleBetrayalResistancePatriotismNationalismHeroismRebirthSocial Commentary
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Tomorrow We Starve by Stewart Stafford Grey aftertaste of dawn's biting light, In emptied pockets, lint lesions blight, A funeral march, with posture askew, To a larder bare, options few. A cup of tea's transient balm, Rip open bills in the trembling calm, Hope flickers in redemption's seam, Vanishing as we scratch a fragile dream. Wages held back, our pleas ignored, To cloudy ivory towers, we implored, Shadow people ground to a husk, Tiny crumb specks in the dusk. An overseer's laugh, a cruel facade, The golden rule's sick charade, Fingers sear in the dying flame, The keening wind calls my name. Reflections shatter, a distorted view, Pipe dreams, strangled at birth, through, The shaming shade exacts its cost, Each pore clogged with penury's frost. In darkest siege, a spark may ignite, Defiant ember beacon's twilight, Hope battered, but refuses to die, Whispered lifeline to the coldest sky. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

HopePovertyDespairSocial JusticeResilienceSocial CommentaryContemporary PoetrySocial InequalityRealistic PoetryEmotional Poetry
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Joshua took another small sip from his wine glass as his gaze and his thoughts drifted away from the flat-screen television mounted above the marbled fireplace to ponder a roomful of sports jackets and pantsuits and in some cases cocktail dresses but only of neutral tones and minimal detailing if for no other reason than to avoid becoming the subject of the next petty scandal that would nevertheless send shockwaves through their haughty and insular world. The way they stood in their intimate clusters. Their drink glasses held in various poses of sophistication. And whenever they did bring glass to mouth in accordance with judiciously preset intervals it was also for show, as he believed was true of their subdued conversations, which, from where he was sitting, appeared to be nothing more than the unintelligible murmurings of barely moving lips. A whole list of observations came to mind. Not one of them flattering in any way. The atmosphere thick with that certain stuffiness and elitist redolence of an ivy league alumni fundraising gala. Of course, he readily admitted to himself that out of everyone in the room he was very likely the most materially bereft and least credentialed and that this stinging truth undoubtedly inflamed his plebeian impulse. But that’s not what was bugging him.”

Dark HumorSocial CommentaryWhimsicalWhimsySocial CriticismCultural CritiqueSocial CritiqueCultural CriticismDark Humor QuotesSocial Commentary Satire
Book:The Subtle Cause
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“It's the little things that make you want to kill someone, the way Milo drinks Diet Dr Pepper and ties his Jewfro in a bun and lifts his shirt to show off his stomach and wipes his glasses down even though they're not dirty. Yes, Milo got glasses, and seafoam green Topsiders, and a navy blue Polo-style shirt with a popped collar, and didn't I already kill this guy when he was schilling Home Soda and fucking Guinevere Beck?”

HumorSatireYouHipsterSocial CommentaryCaroline KepnesHidden BodiesPreppy
Book:Hidden Bodies
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“When I pull Amy's extra-long body into an infinity pool and make it look like an accident—dare to dream!—I will be okay because I will have become a Facebook guy, a normal dude. We live in an era where people who don't have 4,355 friends are considered nefarious, as if socially entrenched citizens aren't also capable of murder. I need friends so that when Amy disappears, my friends can roll their eyes at the idea of handsome, gregarious Joe killing someone. I can't be that guy who 'keeps to himself." That's too in-line with the dated but pervasive stereotype of a 'killer' reinforced by biased TV 'news' shows no matter how many happy-go-lucky husbands go and murder their wives. We all want to fear single people. It's endemic. It's American.”

HumorAmericaSocial MediaSatireFacebookSocial CommentaryMurderersCaroline KepnesHidden Bodies
Book:Hidden Bodies
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