C. Wright Mills Quotes

Quotes about:

• You can never really understand an individual unless you also understand the society,historical time period in which they live,personal troubles, and social issues

  C. Wright Mills

  Issues, Historical, Trouble

  121 Copy quote

• The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness. We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion.

  C. Wright Mills

  Knowledge, Frustration, Political Will

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings”, p.184, Univ of California Press

  128 Copy quote

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

  C. Wright Mills

  Anger, Understanding, Society

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.3, Oxford University Press

  91 Copy quote

• The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. This is its task and its promise.

  C. Wright Mills

  Two, Imagination, Promise

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.6, Oxford University Press

  88 Copy quote

• By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.

  C. Wright Mills

  Military, Power, Circles

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.18, Oxford University Press

  84 Copy quote

• It is the political task of the social scientist — as of any liberal educator — continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work — and, as an educator, in his life as well — this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Issues, Imagination

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.187, Oxford University Press

  105 Copy quote

• People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.

  C. Wright Mills

  Believe, Self, People

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.14, Oxford University Press

  87 Copy quote

• Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm.

  C. Wright Mills

  Business, Father, Winning

  C. Wright Mills (2002). “White Collar: The American Middle Classes”, p.36, Oxford University Press

  79 Copy quote

• All politics is a struggle for power; the ultimate kind of power is violence.

  C. Wright Mills

  Struggle, Violence, Kind

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.171, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.

  C. Wright Mills

  Inspirational, Freedom, Opportunity

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.174, Oxford University Press

  35 Copy quote

• Whatever sociology may be, it is the result of constantly asking the question, what is the meaning of this?

  C. Wright Mills

  Asking, May, Sociology

  32 Copy quote

• The mass production of distraction is now as much a part of the American way of life as the mass production of automobiles.

  C. Wright Mills

  Way, Entertainment, Distraction

  14 Copy quote

• Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what this connection means for the kind of people they are becoming and for the kind of history-making in which they might take part.

  C. Wright Mills

  Mean, People, Ordinary

  "The Sociological Imagination". Book by C. Wright Mills, 1959.

  52 Copy quote

• 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

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Historical, Actors

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.158, Oxford University Press

  50 Copy quote

• The immediate cause of World War III is the military preparation of it.

  C. Wright Mills

  Military, War, Preparation

  11 Copy quote

• The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Ability, Values

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.4, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Personality, Doe

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.11, Oxford University Press

  28 Copy quote

• In our time, what is at issue is the very nature of man, the image we have of his limits and possibilities as a man. History is not yet done with its exploration of the limits and meanings of human nature.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Issues, Curiosity

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.171, Oxford University Press

  9 Copy quote

• To accept opinions is to gain the good solid feeling of being correct without having to think.

  C. Wright Mills

  Thinking, Feelings, Gains

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.312, Oxford University Press

  14 Copy quote

• The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.

  C. Wright Mills

  Stars, Men, White

  35 Copy quote

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

  C. Wright Mills

  Real, Revolution

  "Listen Yankee". Book by C. Wright Mills, 1960.

  49 Copy quote

• To really belong, we have got, first, to get it clear with ourselves that we do not belong and do not want to belong to an unfree world. As free men and women we have got to reject much of it and to know why we are rejecting it.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, World, Want

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings”, p.187, Univ of California Press

  39 Copy quote

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

  C. Wright Mills

  Fate, Men, Decision

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.182, Oxford University Press

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  C. Wright Mills

  Smart, Blessed, Men

  18 Copy quote

• Let every man be his own methodologist, let every man be his own theorist

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Theorists, Every Man

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.224, Oxford University Press

  25 Copy quote

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