Sociology Quotes

On ne peut opposer absraitement le spectacle et l'activité sociale effective.

What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? ...

The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are gr...

Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.

Mr Baley", said Quemot, "you can't treat human emotions as though they were built about a positronic...

Any industrial product that comes in per capita quanta beyond a given intensity exercises a radical ...

We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.

If man--if each one of us--abdicates his responsibilities with regard to values; if each one of us l...

If it's far away, it's news, but if it's close at home, it's sociology.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marv...

Most sentimental ideas imply, at bottom, a deep if unacknowledged disrespect.

…sense of futility that comes from doing anything merely to prove to yourself that you can do it: ha...

We criticize Americans for not being able either to analyse or conceptualize. But this is a wrong-he...

Us" versus "them" is not in our genes. It is something we learn.

It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button.

History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing b...

What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transf...

The attempt to interpret human behavior in terms of models derived from the natural sciences eventua...

At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabri...

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not w...

With sociology one can do anything and call it work.

Have a little sociological beano. As you said - in sociology one can do anything and call it work.

That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have...

It is just when people are all engaged in snooping on themselves and one another that they become an...

False fears are a plague, a modern plague!

Having wallowed in a delightful orgy of anti-French sentiment, having deplored and applauded the vil...

What a growing number of sociologists have found ought to be common sense: by locking millions of pe...

Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial...

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable op...

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely ...

In my early teens, [my grandfather] would sometimes stomp around his living room, where he used to s...

We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of Libraries it opens, not the number it c...

The function of sociology, as of every science, is to reveal that which is hidden.

It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to a...

Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. F...

They came to study the dreadful vulgarity of this imaginary Mass Man they pretend to hate. But they'...

My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discove...

But one way or another competing and weeding takes place . . . or a race goes downhill.

Rich is my word for someone who can afford to make choices, who has enough resources to do more than...

On election days, the burdens of poverty and corruption and of a creaky economic system are put asid...

And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're i...

Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.

The unstated premise that nature is nice lies behind many of the objections to the Darwinian theory ...

Many people think that the theory of the selfish gene says that “animals try to spread their genes.”...

Perhaps we should rejoice that people’s emotions aren’t designed for the good of the group. Often th...

No society can be simultaneously fair, free, and equal. If it is fair, people who work harder can ac...

The violence of a lower-class man may indeed express rage, but it is aimed not at society but at the...

Chicago is not the most corrupt of cities. The state of New Jersey has a couple. Need we mention Nev...

It's daft, locking us up," said Nanny. "I'd have had us killed.""That's because you're basically goo...

Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistic...

Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology ...

Language is a social art.

Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to...

To understand how that astounding moral blindness was possible, it is helpful to think of the worker...

When there is no other aim but to outstrip constantly the point arrived at, how painful to be thrown...

It seems very strange that one must turn back, and be transported to the very beginnings of history,...

Free love may try to dissolve, and the concubinate to desecrate, the holiest tie, as it pleases; but...

Theory -the seeing of patterns, showing the forest as well as the trees- theory can be a dew that ri...

I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty---to one's friends and one's family and one's caste.

Granting that there is some truth to the theory that defects in society give rise to the emergence o...

What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent techno...

One of the anomalies of modern ecology is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely awa...

As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, i...

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their childre...

The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society, and it is human beings who ...

Concurrently, the growing class power and public voice of conservative and liberal well-to-do black ...

The real enemy" is the totality of physical and mental constraints by which capital, or class societ...

You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stu...

Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linkin...

The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our ...

People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. The...

Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understandi...

For some reason I was reluctant to ask anybody what had happened. I hate being the person who always...

People turned out to be alive. Hitherto he had supposed that they were what he pretended to be - fla...

The artist tries to show reason in experience and appearance – and lyric is the daily appearance, th...

[The ruling class] sees people in the working class as being almost animals. It sees itself as being...

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim a...

The application of psychoanalysis to sociology must definitely guard against the mistake of wanting ...

A society whose members are helpless need idols.

Once the primary bonds which gave security to the individual are severed, once the individual faces ...

In this view, man is an energy-convertingorganism who must exert his manipulative powers, who must d...

Man is an animal who has to live in a lie in order tolive at all.

In this view, man is an energy-converting organism who must exert his manipulative powers, who must ...

Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do ...

individuals are concerned notwith the moral issue of realizing these standards, but withthe amoral i...

In our society, defecation involves anindividual in activity which is defined as inconsistent withth...

It is said that man is wolf to man. I find this very unfair to wolves.

The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society.

One needs to properly possess only a couple of great thoughts--they shed light on many stretches who...

By my existence I am nothing more than an empty place, an outline,that is reserved within being in g...

But unfortunately you get no further by merely wishing class-distinctions away. More exactly, it is ...

It is only when you meet someoneof a different culture from yourself that you begin to realize what ...

But unfortunately you get no further by merely wishing class-distinctionsaway. More exactly, it is n...

It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realize what...

One can't love humanity. One can only love people.

The old man in the beard he felt convinced was wrong. He was too busy saving his own soul. Wasn't it...

Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.

It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.