Quotes from The Sociological Imagination

“Let every man be his own methodologist, let every man be his own theorist”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“p5-what they need..is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It this this quality..what may be called the sociological imagination.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“Xiii- men must...find their way from false to true consciousness, from their immediate to their real interest. They can do so only if they live in need of changing their way of life, of denying the positive, of refusing, it is precisely this need which the established society manages to repress using the scientific conquest of nature for the scientific conquest of man.

Xvi-the technological society is a system of domination.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“P3- neither the life of an individual nor the history off a society can be understood without understanding both”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“P6-the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within sociey.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“the more aware they become,however vaugely,of ambitions & of threats which transcend their immediate locales, the more trapped they seem to feel.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“Nie można zrozumieć ani życia jednostki, ani życia społeczeństwa, nie odnosząc jednego do drugiego.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“p4- the history that now effects everyman is world history”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“In so far as he [sic] is concerned with liberal, that is to say liberating, education, his public role has two goals: What he ought to do for the individual is to turn personal troubles and concerns into social issues and problems open to reason – his aim is to help the individual become a self-educating man, who only then would be reasonable and free. What he ought to do for the society is to combat all those forces which are destroying genuine publics ... his aim is to help build and to strengthen self-cultivating publics.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“Those in the grip of the methodological inhibition often refuse to say anything about modern society unless it has been through the fine little mill of The Statistical Ritual. It is usual to say that what they produce is true even if unimportant. I do not agree with this; more and more I wonder how true it is. I wonder how much exactitude, or even pseudo-precision, is here confused with 'truth'; and how much abstracted empiricism is taken as the only 'empirical' manner of work.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“One great lesson that we can learn from its systematic absence in the work of the grand theorists is that every self-conscious thinker must at all times be aware of — and hence be able to control — the levels of abstraction on which he is working. The capacity to shuttle between levels of abstraction, with ease and with clarity, is a signal mark of the imaginative and systematic thinker.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

“Wiele ważnych problemów publicznych, podobnie jak wiele prywatnych kłopotów, opisuje się w kategoriach „psychiatrycznych” – często, jak się wydaje, w żałosnej próbie ucieczki przed wielkimi problemami i pytaniami nowoczesnego społeczeństwa.”
― C. Wright Mills, quote from The Sociological Imagination

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Popular quotes

“Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.


With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
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― Chingiz Aitmatov, quote from The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.