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Quotes by Sociologist
"Spencer's god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress."
54
"Santa Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the U.S. is a paradise. Paradise is just paradise. Mournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is paradise. There is no other."
54
"A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius."
53
"It is in games that many men discover their paradise."
53
"Our institute's agenda is relatively simple. We study the relationship between social-economic change and culture. By culture we mean beliefs, values and lifestyles. We cover a broad range of issues, and we work very internationally."
53
"You could say that we are living in an internally globalized country."
53
"We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind."
53
"Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders)."
53
"Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being."
53
"The idea that you surrender your identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the opposite is the case: if done in an intelligent way, you attain the sovereignty to better solve national problems in cooperation with others."
53
"What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited."
53
"The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare."
53
"Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."
53
"There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served."
52
"In order to accommodate to change and to the contrast of phenomena, the intellect does not require any shocks and inner upheavals; it is only through such upheavals that the more conservative mind could accommodate to the metropolitan rhythm of events."
52
"Cowardice and courage are never without a measure of affectation. Nor is love. Feelings are never true. They play with their mirrors."
52
"Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying... Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die."
52
"Some people think that as the Chinese economy becomes more and more capitalistic it will inevitably become more democratic."
52
"If you say simply that pressures toward democracy are created by the market, I would say yes."
52
"Effective health care depends on self-care; this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery."
52
"On the one hand, life is made infinitely easy for the personality in that stimulations, interests, uses of time and consciousness are offered to it from all sides. They carry the person as if in a stream, and one needs hardly to swim for oneself."
52
"But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in the modern world."
52
"To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration."
52
"Sentimentality about nature denatures everything it touches."
52
"Votes in federal elections are cast and counted in a highly decentralized and variable fashion, with no uniform ballots and few national standards."
51
"Germany expected that at the most a day or so would see Belgian resistance broken and the dash on Paris begun. It was not safe to start such a forward rush with Belgium unconquered."
51
"If there are signs that Americans bow to the gods of advertising, there are equally indications that people find the gods ridiculous. It is part of the popular culture that advertisements are silly."
51
"Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past."
51
"Why, I ask, isn't it possible that advertising as a whole is a fantastic fraud, presenting an image of America taken seriously by no one, least of all by the advertising men who create it?"
51
"Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays tucked away, hidden beneath the difficulty of living. If that difficulty is removed from time to time, death is suddenly there, unintelligibly."
51
"School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them."
51
"The power of ads rests more in the repetition of obvious exhortations than in the subtle transmission of values."
51
"The increase in straight-ticket party voting in recent years means that competitive congressional races can tip one way or the other depending on the showing of the candidates at the top of the ticket."
51
"As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it."
51
"Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real."
51
"The mind is not a hermit's cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse."
51
"Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don't."
50
"Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God."
50
"Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition."
50
"The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence."
50
"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century."
50
"Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements."
50
"Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things."
50
"We really only came around to accepting and integrating the propositional dimension of identity into a concept of ourselves at the time of the American Revolution."
50
"The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation."
50
"Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both."
50
"Schools are successful only insofar as they reduce the dependence of a child's opportunities upon his social origins."
50
"Leadership does not depend on being right."
49
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