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As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.

— Charles Cooley

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More quotes by Charles Cooley

The social self is simply any idea, or system of ideas, drawn from the communicative life, that the mind cherishes as its own.

Strong joy and grief depend upon the treatment this rudimentary social self receives.

A separate individual is an abstraction unknown to experience, and so likewise is society when regarded as something apart from individuals.

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.

A self-idea of this sort seems to have three principal elements: the imagination of our appearance to the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification.

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Attribution

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