Charles Horton Cooley
14 quotes
Biography
Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist. He was the son of Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M.
"An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one."
"Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also."
"Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God."
"Institutions - government, churches, industries, and the like - have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction."
"So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational."
"Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom."
"Institutions - government, churches, industries, and the like - have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction."
"If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted."
"Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also."
"The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society."
"I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am."
"Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh ... to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies."
"Faith in our associates is part of our faith in God."
"A talent somewhat above mediocrity shrewd and not too sensitive is more likely to rise in the world than genius which is apt to be perturbable and to wear itself out before fruition."