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Quotes by Sociologist
"The effectiveness of advertising depends on the amount and kind of product information available to consumers... advertising will be more successful the more impoverished the consumer's information environment."
63
"A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life."
63
"A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy."
62
"We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself."
61
"Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power."
61
"But then I came to the conclusion that no, while there may be an immigration problem, it isn't really a serious problem. The really serious problem is assimilation."
60
"We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror."
60
"Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated."
60
"Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit."
Loss,
60
"And therefore we must seek dialogue in this networked world. We must ask which voice was actually attempting to make itself heard and saw no other possibility of gaining a hearing. To that extent, for a while this also represented a forced opening of a cosmopolitan view."
60
"Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release."
60
"The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist."
60
"There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "Americanize" him."
59
"With Germany herself falling, it is not strange that the nations leagued with her also went down to defeat."
59
"As I write at the end, if we step back and face the enormity of the torrent, then we have taken the first step to imagining what we might want to do about it."
59
"Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity."
59
"For, to be a stranger is naturally a very positive relation; it is a specific form of interaction."
58
"There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values in the churches is mainly the heavier dosage of religious vocabulary involved."
58
"The main concern of the study is with the outline of a theoretical system. Its minor variations from writer to writer are not a matter of concern to this analysis."
58
"Human inertia makes the everyday environment, the furniture, as it were, appear to be a given."
58
"Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise."
58
"When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him."
58
"Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity."
58
"Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble."
58
"Congress requires states to draw single-member districts."
58
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
57
"Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor."
57
"The metropolis has always been the seat of the money economy."
57
"People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages."
57
"When they come to Europe, they are confronted by still closed borders. Thus, the concept of open borders is a very selective concept, one that is not taken seriously at all in the experience of non-Europeans."
57
"With acknowledgement of residues, we can be more easily prepared to grant the unit of science, the overlapping of disciplines, and the total coherence of all facts."
57
"The French were generous in giving us assistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel, and we were confident from the start of our superiority over the enemy in guns of all calibers."
57
"Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any personality. To be celebrated, to be wealthy, to have power requires access to major institutions."
57
"We do not yet have the solutions to these questions, but the awareness that we live in an endangered world is present in more and more life situations."
57
"The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life."
56
"Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment."
56
"When certain branches of the economy become obsolete, as in the case of the steel industry, not only do jobs disappear, which is obviously a terrible social hardship, but certain cultures also disappear."
56
"So American culture is itself a hybrid and lends itself to use in other people's hybrids."
56
"Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet."
56
"Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness."
56
"To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change."
56
"Most criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies."
55
"Finally, in my critique of the immigration image of America, it is also important to know that we're not only a nation of immigrants, but we are in some part a nation of emigrants, which often gets neglected."
55
"Sure, I've often been misrepresented - anyone frequently quoted has this experience."
55
"A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory."
55
"While Republican voters have remained universally supportive of their President, Democrats and Independents are returning to a more naturally critical stance."
54
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