Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.

Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.

We can never run away from our past. The past will catch up to us because it is us. It is a part of us; it's what makes us we are. It's what delineates the borders of our societies.

As it defines itself, every society defines other societies. That definition almost always takes the form of a condemnation: the 'other' is the barbarian.

You'll find individuals agreeing on this, but when they get into collective societies and larger groups they find it difficult to achieve group agreement.

One of the most important secret societies of the 20th century is called the Round Table. It is based in Britain with branches across the world. It is the Round Table that ultimately orchestrates the network of the Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Evil societies always kill their consciences.

Hong Kong has created one of the most successful societies on Earth.

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

The primary problem in many modernizing societies is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order. Men may, of course, have order without liberty, but they cannot have liberty without order.

When societies go backwards and slide into authoritarianism, nationalism, and tribalism, machismo and sexism are also emboldened.

Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating.

Any serious shift towards more sustainable societies has to include gender equality.

Both individuals and societies tell themselves stories to simplify and make sense of the messy chaos of reality.

Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.

Inequality causes problems by creating fissures in societies, leaving those at the bottom feeling marginalized or disenfranchised.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.