Quotes by C. Wright Mills

C. Wright Mills

[O]ne could translate the 555 pages of The Social System into about 150 pages of straightforward English. The result would not be very impressive.

Pages

Results

Social

A society that is in its higher circles and middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of ‘success’ to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal. Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed.

Blessed

Men

Smart

According to your belief [Christian clergy], my kind of man — secular, prideful, agnostic and all the rest of it — is among the damned. I’m on my own. You’ve got your God.

Belief

Christian

Men

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.

Cities

Paris

Rome

As a social and as a personal force, religion has become a dependent variable. It does not originate; it reacts. It does not denounce; it adapts. It does not set forth new models of conduct and sensibility; it imitates. Its rhetoric is without deep appeal; the worship it organizes is without piety. It has become less a revitalization of the spirit in permanent tension with the world than a respectable distraction from the sourness of life.

Atheism

Variables

World

Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.

Fiction

Media

Technology

Each day men sell little pieces if themselves in order to try to buy then back each night and weekend.

Men

Night

Weekend

Every revolution has its counterrevolution – that is a sign the revolution is for real.

Real

Revolution

Fate has to do with events in history that are the summary and unintended results of innumerable decisions of innumerable men.

Decision

Fate

Men

For we cannot adequately understand ‘man’ as an isolated biological creature, as a bundle of reflexes or a set of instincts, as an ‘intelligible field’ or a system in and of itself. Whatever else he may be, man is a social and an historical actor who must be understood, if at all, in close and intricate interplay with social and historical structures

Actors

Historical

Men

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Ability

Acceptance

Actors

Anger

Asking

Atheism

Belief

Blessed

Business

Capacity

Cash

Christian

Cities

Communication

Curiosity

Decision

Distraction

Divine Right

Doe

Energy

Entertainment

Every Man

Fate

Father

Feelings

Fiction

Firsts

Freedom

Frustration

Gains

Government

Historical

History

Imagination

Inspirational

Intellectual

Issues

Keys

Kings

Knowledge

Leisure

Making Money

May

Mean

Media

Men

Military

Mind

Moving

Night

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Quotes by C. Wright Mills

C. Wright Mills

[O]ne could translate the 555 pages of The Social System into about 150 pages of straightforward English. The result would not be very impressive.

According to your belief [Christian clergy], my kind of man — secular, prideful, agnostic and all the rest of it — is among the damned. I’m on my own. You’ve got your God.

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.

Each day men sell little pieces if themselves in order to try to buy then back each night and weekend.

Every revolution has its counterrevolution – that is a sign the revolution is for real.

Fate has to do with events in history that are the summary and unintended results of innumerable decisions of innumerable men.

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Topics by C. Wright Mills

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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