David Riesman

"Character must be understood as a historically contingent achievement."

"We live in an age of what might be called 'manufactured spontaneity.'"

"The individual self is always already social."

"Power in modernity operates through the colonization of desire."

"We must develop the capacity to think critically about our thinking."

"The question of belonging and authenticity cannot be resolved, only negotiated."

"Every moment is an opportunity to either reproduce or transform social structures."

"The culture of consumption masks deeper questions about meaning and purpose."

"We are all caught in the net of interdependence that modernity has created."

"The task of sociology is to make visible what has become invisible through habit."

"We must resist the colonization of every corner of experience by market logic."

"The future remains open to the extent that we can imagine alternatives."

"Character is forged in the friction between individual desire and social expectation."

"We are all responsible for the world we collectively create."

"The tradition-directed person is at home in the modern world."

"Other-direction is the typical character of the modern metropolitan middle class."

"We are all, in a sense, trying to live up to an image of ourselves."

"The inner-directed person possesses a psychological gyroscope."

"Conformity is not necessarily bad; it depends on what we conform to."

"The lonely crowd is a paradox of modern existence."

"People are increasingly concerned with being liked rather than being right."

"Work has become a means of defining identity in modern society."

"We manufacture consent through peer pressure and social expectation."

"The other-directed character seeks approval from the generalized other."

"Television creates a false intimacy with distant others."

"Leisure has become as demanding as work in contemporary life."

"The peer group has replaced the family as the primary socializing force."

"Modern man is trapped between tradition and endless possibility."

"We are becoming increasingly skilled at reading others while losing ourselves."

"The autonomous person remains rare in the modern age."