Famous quotes by Sociologists

"Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both"

"In the world of the celebrity, the hierarchy of publicity has replaced the hierarchy of descent and even of great wealth"

"Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women"

"One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism"

"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"

"America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub"

"The nearest the modern general or admiral comes to a small-arms encounter of any sort is at a duck hunt in the company of corporation executives at the retreat of Continental Motors, Inc"

"Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both"

"Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real"

"Prestige is the shadow of money and power"

"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"

"The principal cause of war is war itself"

"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"

"People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages"

"Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests"

"We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups"

"The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship"

"For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships"

"Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone"

"Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations"

"We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has"

"Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's"

"It has been true in Western societies and it seems to be true elsewhere that you do not find democratic systems apart from capitalism, or apart from a market economy, if you prefer that term"

"Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy"

"The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude"

"Some people seem to gravitate from one fundamentalism to another, from some kind of secular fundamentalism into a religious fundamentalism or the other way around, which is not very helpful"

"I'm sure Putnam is right that there's been a decline in certain kinds of organizations like bowling leagues. But people participate in communities in other ways"

"We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization"

"The problem with liberal Protestantism in America is not that it has not been orthodox enough, but that it has lost a lot of religious substance"

"If you say simply that pressures toward democracy are created by the market, I would say yes"