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The most elementary communication is not possible without some degree of conformity to the “conventions” of the symbolic system.

— Talcott Parsons The social system (1951)

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Communication

More quotes by Talcott Parsons

Ideology is a system of beliefs, held in common by the members of a collectivity.

The social system (1951)

A social system is a mode of organization of action elements relative to the persistence or ordered processes of change of the interactive patterns of a plurality of individual actors.

The social system (1951)

The functions of the family in a highly differentiated society are not to be interpreted as functions directly on behalf of the society, but on behalf of personality.

Robert Freed Bales (1956)

As a formal analytical point of reference, primacy of orientation to the attainment of a specific goal is used as the defining characteristic of an organization which distinguishes it from other types of social systems.

The structure of a theoretical system tells us what alternatives are open in the possible answers to a given question. If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction.

The structure of social action (1937)

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An entire mythology is stored within our language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Walter Scott Marmion (1808)

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