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The first rule for understanding the human condition is that men live in second-hand worlds. They are aware of much more than they have personally experienced; and their own experience is always indirect.

— C. Wright Mills Power, Politics, and People (1963)

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More quotes by C. Wright Mills

The idea of the elite as composed of men and women having a finer moral character is an ideology of the elite.

The Power Elite (1956)

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.

White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951)

Most American men of affairs have learned well the rhetoric of public relations, in some cases even to the point of using it when they are alone, and thus coming to believe it.

The Power Elite (1956)

To overcome the academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose.

The Sociological Imagination (1959)

When ever the standards of the moneyed life prevail, the man with money, no matter how he got it, will eventually be respected.

Power, Politics, and People (1963)

All C. Wright Mills quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: C. Wright Mills (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.