“The most perceptive observer of the American scene since Alexis de Tocqueville.” “Intellectual integrity … is the ability to see the world as it is, not as you want it to be.” “Trying to stop immigration is like trying to stop gravity.” “Every decision is like surgery. It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock.” “It is the nature of knowledge that it changes fast and that today’s certainties always become tomorrow’s absurdities.” “Sociology is like acne. Civilization does not die from the disease, but it itches.” “The proper study of mankind is organization.” “Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not elephants.” “We are busily unmaking one of the proudest social achievements of the nineteenth century, which was to take married women out of the work force so they could devote themselves to family and children.”


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