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Thinking would not be possible at all if we were not social; we would have no words, no abstract ideas, and no energy for anything outside of immediate sensuality.

— Randall Collins The Sociology of Philosophies (1998)

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Mind

More quotes by Randall Collins

There is no thinking except as aftermath or preparation of communication.

The Sociology of Philosophies (1998)

“Truth” is the reigning sacred object of the scholarly community, as “art” is for literary/artistic communities; these are simultaneously their highest cognitive and moral categories, the locus of highest value, by which all else is judged.

The Sociology of Philosophies (1998)

Violent interactions are difficult because they go against the grain of normal interaction rituals. The tendency to become entrained in each other’s rhythms and emotions means that when the interaction is at cross-purposes—an antagonistic interaction—people experience a pervasive feeling of tension . . . [A]t higher levels of intensity . . . [this tension] shades over into fear.

Violence (2008)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Attribution

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