sociology

Chicago is not the most corrupt of cities. The state of New Jersey has a couple. Need we mention Nevada? Chicago, though, is the Big Daddy. Not more corrupt, just more theatrical, more colorful in its shadiness.

It seems very strange that one must turn back, and be transported to the very beginnings of history, in order to arrive at an understanding of humanity as it is at present.

The attempt to interpret human behavior in terms of models derived from the natural sciences eventually destroys personal responsibility.

In the savage horde the most vagabond, as well as in the most civilized nations of Europe, man is only what he is made to be by external circumstances; he is necessarily elevated by his equals; he contracts from them his habits and his wants; his ideas are no longer his own; he enjoys, from the enviable prerogative of his species, a capacity of developing his understanding bu the power of initiation, and the influence of society.

Any industrial product that comes in per capita quanta beyond a given intensity exercises a radical monopoly over the satisfaction of a need.

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise----as priests, prophets or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

Social change doesn__ happen overnight: It takes decades for momentum to build and for the once-radical edge to become mainstream.

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

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

What a growing number of sociologists have found ought to be common sense: by locking millions of people out of the mainstream legal economy, by making it difficult or impossible for people to find housing or feed themselves, and by destroying familial bonds by warehousing millions for minor crimes, we make crime more__ot less__ikely in the most vulnerable communities.

Humans are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die.

Good sociologists have always had an insatiable curiosity about about even the trivialities of human behaviour, and if this curiosity leads a sociologist to devote many years to the painstaking exploration of some small corner of the social world that may appear quite trivial to others, so be it: Why do more teenagers pick their noses in rural Minnesota than in rural Iowa? What are the patterns of church socials over a twenty-year period in small-town Saskatchewan? What is the correlation between religious affiliation and accident-proneness among elderly Hungarians?

They came to study the dreadful vulgarity of this imaginary Mass Man they pretend to hate. But they're fascinated with the snake-pit.

It takes centuries for sense to become common

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.

A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.

In monetary parlance, there are three types of people - who know how to make money from money (rich); who earn and spend (middle class); and those who don__ know either and remain poor. Their percentages vary from country to country.

In today's society conformity is more of a necessity than an option.