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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.

— 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.

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.

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.

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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.