societal regulations Quotes

The more laws and orders are multiplied, the more theft and violence increase.

How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.

Taboo restrictions are distinct from religious or moral prohibitions. They are not based upon any divine ordinance, but may be said to impose themselves on their own account. They differ from moral prohibitions in that they fall into no system that declares quite generally that certain abstinences must be observed and gives reasons for that necessity.

Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility.

To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.

That's why every society on the planet has very definite rules, ideas about how sex should be regulated, how sex should be expressed, what's okay, what's not okay. And I guess we do live in a place, and have for a long time, where there's more openness and there's more willingness to tolerate different kinds of behavior, but with that comes people creating other rules and other kinds of controls. It's always going to be a question of what's acceptable and what isn't and what's the danger point and what rouses people's contempt and what people are allowed to get away with.

Virtually all of the civil laws in all of the world's societies are based on what humanity, in the earliest days, believed to be God's Law.

To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere.

The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.

It makes sense for societies to make education compulsory for children. Children are vulnerable. They can't make decisions. But the decisions can't all be left in the hands of the parents. They can be irresponsible too.

Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.