Famous quotes containing the words village, improvement and/or society:
“Ezra Pound still lives in a village and his world is a kind of village and people keep explaining things when they live in a village.... I have come not to mind if certain people live in villages and some of my friends still appear to live in villages and a village can be cozy as well as intuitive but must one really keep perpetually explaining and elucidating?”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutions ... are as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)