Quotessence
Home / Books / Human Nature and the Social Order

Human Nature and the Social Order

Book by Charles Horton Cooley · 49 quotes · Men, Mind, Self

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenMindSelfHumansIfsSocialDoeFeelsHigherPersonsSeemsAdmireCausesCertainEyeFormGivingImaginationInstitutionsIntercourse

Human Nature and the Social Order Quotes

“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.”

MindMeanSelfReasonUseFormIndividualHigherDisciplineFitConscienceConcernedAbsenceRationalSelf RespectPhasesDegradeUnfree
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“If the man succeeds in becoming indifferent to the opinions of his neighbors he runs into another danger, that of a distorted and extravagant self of the pride sort, since by the very process of gaining independence and immunity from the stings of depreciation and misunderstanding, he has perhaps lost that wholesome deference to some social tribunal that a man cannot dispense with and remain quite sane.”

IfsMenSelfRunningLostSocialProcessOpinionDangerHe ManPrideBecomingSucceedIndependenceNeighborSaneIndifferentMisunderstandingExtravagantImmunityDeferenceTribunalsDepreciation
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them.”

IfsFeelsMeanPersonsHappensCertainSocialSuccessfulGainsRelationInstitutionsComplexesActiveComplexityRetirementReally MeanPondsInsistenceSocial InstitutionsWalden Pond
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“In the days of witchcraft it used to be believed that if one person secretly made a waxen image of another and stuck pins into the image, its counterpart would suffer tortures, and that if the image was melted the person would die. This superstition is almost realized in the relation between the private self and its social reflection. They seem to separate but are darkly united, and what is done to the one is done to the other.”

IfsPersonsMadeSelfDoneSeemsUsedSufferingDiesSocialUnitedReflectionRelationStuckUsed To BeTortureSuperstitionsPinsWitchcraftCounterparts
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“We cannot feel strongly toward the totally unlike because it is unimaginable, unrealizable; nor yet toward the wholly like because it is stale - identity must always be dull company. The power of other natures over us lies in a stimulating difference which causes excitement and opens communication, in ideas similar to our own but not identical, in states of mind attainable but not actual.”

FeelsMindIdeasStatesLyingCausesDifferencesCompanyIdentityCommunicationDiversityExcitementDullState Of MindIdenticalStaleUnimaginable
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.”

MenMindSeemsEyeOpinionImagineShareJudgmentBraveryBraveAshamedGrossStraightforwardRefinedCowardlyRefiningJudgment Of OthersPresence Of MindBeing StraightforwardBrave One
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“When one has come to accept a certain course as duty he has a pleasant sense of relief and of lifted responsibility, even if the course involves pain and renunciation. It is like obedience to some external authority; any clear way, though it lead to death, is mentally preferable to the tangle of uncertainty.”

IfsWayPainCertainCoursesResponsibilityAcceptingClearDutyAuthorityObedienceUncertaintyPleasantReliefRenunciation
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“One who shows signs of mental aberration is, inevitably, perhaps, but cruelly, shut off from familiar, thoughtless intercourse, partly excommunicated; his isolation is unwittingly proclaimed to him on every countenance by curiosity, indifference, aversion, or pity, and in so far as he is human enough to need free and equal communication and feel the lack of it, he suffers pain and loss of a kind and degree which others can only faintly imagine, and for the most part ignore.”

NeedsFeelsHumansKindEnoughShowsPainSufferingLossImagineCommunicationEqualDegreesMadnessCuriosityFamiliarPityIndifferenceIsolationIntercourseCountenanceAversionAberrationPain And Loss
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“A person of mature years and ripe development, who is expecting nothing from literature but the corroboration and renewal of past ideas, may find satisfaction in a lucidity so complete as to occasion no imaginative excitement, but young and ambitious students are not content with it. They seek the excitement because they are capable of the growth that it accompanies.”

YearsMayPersonsBookIdeasPastYoungReadingLiteratureGrowthStudentsDevelopmentCapableSatisfactionOccasionsExcitementMatureAmbitiousExpectingImaginativeRenewalBook ReadingRipeAccompanyLucidity
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image

“In most cases a favorite writer is more with us in his book than he ever could have been in the flesh; since, being a writer, he is one who has studied and perfected this particular mode of personal incarnation, very likely to the detriment of any other. I should like as a matter of curiosity to see and hear for a moment the men whose works I admire; but I should hardly expect to find further intercourse particularly profitable.”

MenShouldWritingHas BeensBookMatterMomentsCasesParticularHe ManCuriosityFleshAdmireCould Have BeenProfitableIncarnationIntercourse
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
Create image