Theme

Society philosophy quotes

Society is the web of institutions, customs, and mutual expectations in which individual freedom takes shape.

Why this theme matters

Social philosophy asks how individuals and collectives constitute each other, and what justice requires of shared life.

In the history of philosophy

From classical politics and Confucian relational ethics to contract theory, sociology, and critical theory, society is both fact and project.

Thinkers in this collection

Jean-Jacques Rousseau , William James , Hu Shi , Guanzi , Qian Mu , Ibn Khaldun , Michel de Montaigne , David Hume

Frequently asked questions

What is society in philosophy?

It is the organized coexistence of persons through norms, institutions, and shared meanings.

Do individuals exist before society?

Some theories start from individuals; others hold that persons are formed within social relations from the start.

Where are philosophy quotes about society?

Browse this theme alongside politics, justice, and power.

  1. Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
  2. Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
  3. Study problems, import theories, reorganize the national heritage, and recreate civilization.
  4. When the granaries are full, people know ritual and restraint; when food and clothing are sufficient, they know honor and shame.
  5. Toward the past history of one’s own country, one should hold a warmth of feeling and a sense of respect.
  6. Man is a child of customs, not of his ancestors.
  7. Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own custom.
  8. The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, thought of saying 'This is mine'…was the true founder of civil society.
  9. Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.
  10. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
  11. We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
  12. Democratic societies have a natural taste for liberty.
  13. We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids.
  14. By “renewing the people” we do not mean abandoning all that is old to follow others. Renewal has two senses: to refine what we already have, and to supply what we lack.
  15. Tolerance is the foundation of all freedom; without tolerance, there is no freedom.
  16. Attitudes toward life are basically three: striving forward, holding the mean in harmony, and turning back inward.