Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Society is difficult for everyone, but those with power or status find it easier to endure.
- In plain terms
- Life is hard, but being at the top makes it easier.
- What can you take from it?
- Status and privilege mitigate the hardships of societal structures.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does privilege truly reduce suffering or just change its nature?
Another view
It oversimplifies the struggles that even those at the top face.
More from Timothy Leary
Why not?
Permalink to quote #18 The only abuse of drugs is the control of drugs by other people. ...The only control is self-control.
Permalink to quote #20 In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.
Permalink to quote #17
Related quotes
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
TacitusTacitus quote #1 The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to i…
Reinhold NiebuhrReinhold Niebuhr quote #9 We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by…
Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore quote #16