Sociologists Quotes

• He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

  Iris Murdoch

  Intellectual, Literature, Muddle

  54 Copy quote

• No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time.

  Max Weber

  Thinking, Age, Months

  Max Weber (2009). “From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology”, p.135, Routledge

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• Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant rationale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Class, Events, Sociology

  "The bulletin of mathematical biophysics" by Anatol Rapoport, (p. 183), 1949.

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• Mills insisted that a sociologist's proper subject was the intersection of biography and history.

  Todd Gitlin

  Biographies, Mills, Intersections

  Todd Gitlin (2013). “The Intellectuals and the Flag: Reclaiming the American Liberal Tradition”, p.28, Columbia University Press

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• It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Successful, Opportunity, Special

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• Academic sociologists have been trained to conceive of their discipline - sociology - as the scientific study of society, and to remit to the sister discipline of psychology the study of individuals.

  Richard Wall

  Discipline, Psychology, Study

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• Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: You become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

  Philip Yancey

  Father, Life Changing, Thinking

  Philip Yancey (2008). “What's So Amazing About Grace?”, p.46, Zondervan

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• Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as though it is not necessary even to study Caesar in order to understand him. Yet we know that the interplay of theory and research makes both for understanding of the specific case and expansion of the general rule.

  Robert K. Merton

  Views, Order, Temptation

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• If the sociologist has a role, it is probably more to furnish weapons than to give lessons.

  Pierre Bourdieu

  Giving, Roles, Lessons

  Pierre Bourdieu's speech at the conference of the AFEF in Limoges, October 30, 1977.

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• I think people do look to writers to tell the truth in a way that nobody else quite will, not politicians or ministers or sociologists. A writer's job, is to, by way of fiction, somehow describe the way we live. And to me, this seems an important task, very worth doing, and I think also, to the reading public, it seems, even though they might not articulate it, it seems to them something worth doing also.

  John Updike

  Jobs, Reading, Thinking

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• As the popular trust in science fades - and many sociologists say that's happening today - people will develop a distrust of purely "scientific" psychology. Researchers in the universities haven't picked up on this; they're more interested in genetics and computer models of thinking than ever. But, in general, there is a huge distrust of the scientific establishment now.

  James Hillman

  Thinking, People, Psychology

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• I don't consider myself a sociologist, I consider myself a filmmaker, among other things. Maybe an asshole but a filmmaker.

  Melvin Van Peebles

  Filmmaker

  Source: www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk

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• Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Economist, Physicist

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• I have heard earnest American sociologists say that American children have a right to the divorce experience as an enriching element of an advanced civilisation.

  Anthony Burgess

  Children, Divorce, Elements

  Anthony Burgess (1990). “You've had your time: being the second part of the confessions of Anthony Burgess”, Heinemann Educational Books

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• Controlling for all the things that sociologists, economists, and political scientists say you should control for, we find that what drives one's views [most significantly] is race.

  Michael C Dawson

  Views, Race, Political

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• These terrible sociologists, who are the astrologers and alchemists of our twentieth century.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Science, Technology, Alchemist

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• The study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person.

  George A. Sheehan

  Sports, Motivation, Exercise

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• A sociologist without an archive is like a person without a memory.

  Raisa Gorbacheva

  Memories, Archives, Persons

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• All the electronic devices are weakening the social bonds. Sociologists and psychologists should study this serious threat instead of repeating that communication is the cement of society.

  Mario Bunge

  Communication, Serious, Study

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

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• What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are a believer? Virtually nothing, say psychologists, sociologists, and others who have studied that question for decade

  Alfie Kohn

  Caring, Knowing, Helpful

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• In a way, all sociologists are akin to Marxists because of their inclination to settle everyone's accounts but their own.

  Raymond Aron

  Way, Settling, Marxist

  1971 Politics and History.

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• I'm not a sociologist, I'm not a political scientist, but I'm a fairly intuitive person.

  Anthony Scaramucci

  Political, Scientist, Persons

  Source: gawker.com

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• I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction interesting to people. But that's not my concern. I'm interested in psychology. And also certain philosophical questions about the world.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Philosophical, People, Interesting

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Being a sociologist means never having to be bored

  Randall Collins

  Mean, Bored

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• If there's a distinction between men and women, I don't pay attention to it. Honestly, I don't see it. I think all of us are part feminine and part masculine. I'm sure sociologists can come up with distinctions about what's different between men and women, but for every example you can give about what a woman does, you can come up with an opposite example of other women who don't do that. Those are more artificial distinctions, I think.

  Wayne Dyer

  Men, Thinking, Opposites

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