Clay Shirky Quotes

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

Our species likes being social.

Man is a social animal.

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

Human beings are a social species. We like to hang together in groups, just like wildebeests, just like lions. Wildebeests don't hang with lions because lions eat wildebeests. Human beings are like that. We do what that group does that we're trying to identify with.

Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others.

Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.

Whether we appreciate it or not, we live out our lives surrounded by an intricate pattern of social connections... We're all embedded in this network; it affects us profoundly and we may be unaware of its existence, of its effect on us.

Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

We're social animals. We've got to get along together. It's in our nature. We're hardwired that way.

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

It's human nature to want to be with other people.

Humans are humans because we are able to communicate with each other and to organize to do things together that we can't do individually.

Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.

The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.

Man has been adjudged a social animal.

There is no such thing as society…There are individuals, men and women, and there are families.

Loneliness is not a problem in traditional societies. People spend their lives in or near the place where they were born, and they remain surrounded by relatives and childhood companions.

That's the way we see life: your community is your survival. And if you live in a small community like this, even the people you hate you have as friends.

All animals communicate. What's special about gossip is that it's not about the here and now. You don't gossip about lions. You don't gossip about clouds. You only gossip about other people. And once you do, you can keep track of many more people - this is the basis for forming larger communities.

God designed humans to live in community.

Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle. Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.

Just as important as our society as a whole are our small communities: our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools.