Sociology Quotes - Page 3

• The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Christian, Baby, Hate

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.21, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.

  Clifford Geertz

  People, Different, Asking

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• As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that’s my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I’m interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent.[These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love.

  Ava DuVernay

  Art, Jobs, Black

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• The theme of corporate stories (and millions drink them in every day) seldom varies: to be happy you must consume, to be special you must conform. Absurd, obviously, yet our identities have become so fragile, so elusive, that we seem content to let advertisers provide us with their version of who we are, to let them recreate us in their image: a cookie-cutter image based on market research, shallow sociology, and insidious lies.

  Tom Robbins

  Lying, Special You, Identity

  "(Revisiting) The Syntax of Sorcery: An Interview with Tom Robbins". Interview with Tony Vigorito, realitysandwich.com. May 9, 2014.

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• We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.

  J. B. Priestley

  Revenge, Animal, Prison

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.

  Quincy Jones

  America, Long, Hip Hop

  "Q&A with Quincy Jones". Interview with Robert Hilburn, articles.latimes.com. April 18, 1997.

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• I admit that the eyes of the intellectually and culturally lively tend to glaze over at the mere mention of sociology, often with ample justification.

  Richard Wall

  Eye, Justification, Lively

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• Sociology should... be thought of as a science of action-of the ultimate common value element in its relations to the other elements of action.

  Talcott Parsons

  Science, Elements, Action

  Talcott Parsons (1967). “Structure of Social Action”, Free Pr

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• How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline: the sociology of error.

  Steven Johnson

  Intelligent, Errors, Discipline

  Steven Johnson (2006). “The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World”, p.27, Penguin

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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, Description

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

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• Like many students, I found the drudgery of real experiments and the slowness of progress a complete shock, and at my low points I contemplated other alternative careers including study of the philosophy or sociology of science.

  Paul Nurse

  Philosophy, Real, Careers

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• If you find yourself concentrating on the technology rather than the sociology, you're like the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, "The light is better there."

  Tom DeMarco

  Character, Dark, Technology

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• That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Epidemics, Order, Movement

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. 2000.

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• If I am not mistaken, psychology, psychiatry and some branches of sociology, not to speak about the so-called philosophy of history, are even more affected by what I have called the scientistic prejudice, and by specious claims of what science can achieve.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Philosophy, Psychology, Prejudice

  Friedrich August von Hayek's Prize Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1974.

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• That subject has lost its one time appeal to economists as our science has become more abstract, but my interest has even grown more intense as the questions raised by the sociology of science became more prominent.

  George Stigler

  Science, Intense, Abstract

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• There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where many horses are gathered together, where year after year, decade after decade, they do the same, rather simple thing - run in races and try to win.

  Jane Smiley

  Running, Horse, Winning

  "A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck". Book by Jane Smiley, www.theguardian.com. April 2004.

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• Any change in customs ... takes generations to accomplish, and must come about by general consent. Even a superficial study of sociology shows the futility of past efforts to make a lasting change in manners by an act of will or authority.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Past, Lasting Change, Effort

  Millicent Fenwick (1948). “Vogue's book of etiquette: a complete guide to traditional forms and modern usage”

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• Already I notice a feeling of 'If this be sociology, Good Lord deliver us.' However sociology has endured many things like it and my faith in its ultimate triumph never wavers.

  Edward Alsworth Ross

  Feelings, Triumph, Lord

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• We can contemplate the creation of new kinds of vital texts: curate sociology rather than just write it

  Les Back

  Writing, Kind, Creation

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• I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

  Andre Dubus

  College, Men, Wings

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• I think sociologists are among the best at thinking about emergence, of thinking about the ways that the society is more than the sum of the individuals. And I've found that much of the wisest writing on human social nature comes from sociology and anthropology, not from my own field of social psychology.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Writing, Thinking, Psychology

  Source: bigthink.com

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• I have an economics degree with a minor in sociology. The reason I have that is because I want to do a ministry in urban areas and help with underprivileged kids.

  Jeremy Lin

  Kids, Degrees, Ministry

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• Sociology and anthropology are not disciplines which take easily to situations where people are able to live out their fantasies, not just in the symbolic action of ritual, but in the concrete theater of society at large.

  Jonathan Raban

  Discipline, People, Society

  Jonathan Raban (2017). “Soft City: Picador Classic”, p.53, Pan Macmillan

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• One of the key places where sociology should be used is in analyzing 'the world' of our times, so that we can be more discerning. To resist the dangers of the world, you have to recognize the distortions and seductions of the world.

  Os Guinness

  Keys, World, Analyzing

  "Os Guinness Calls for a New Christian Renaissance". Interview with Ginny Mooney, www.christianpost.com. June 18, 2011.

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• Policy makers, like most people, normally feel that they already know all the psychology and all the sociology they are likely to need for their decisions. I don't think they are right, but that's the way it is.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Thinking, People, Decision

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