Thomas Luckmann

"Religion, though changed in form, remains essential to human existence."

"We are simultaneously products and producers of our social worlds."

"The private construction of meaning creates new forms of vulnerability."

"Socialization never fully determines our responses to the social world."

"The body is the primary instrument through which we engage social reality."

"Institutions persist because they continue to plausibly explain our experiences."

"Modern pluralism forces constant reflexivity about our fundamental assumptions."

"Society is a human product that becomes an objective reality for subsequent generations."

"The transformation of consciousness requires transformation of social relationships."

"Legitimacy is not inherent in institutions but must be continuously conferred."

"The loss of traditional certainties creates both crisis and opportunity."

"Meaning is maintained through routine performance of social roles and rituals."

"The self is a project rather than a possession in modern society."

"Every institution contains the seeds of its own de-legitimation."

"We live in a universe we have collectively created but often forget we created."

"The privatization of meaning is both liberation and burden."

"Identity develops through the constant redefinition of our relationship to society."

"The sacred persists wherever humans find ultimacy in their interpretations of life."

"Social change occurs when shared plausibility structures begin to crumble."

"Every biography is simultaneously a unique construction and a social product."

"The family is where meaning is most intimately created and maintained."

"Modernity requires that we live with permanent uncertainty about ultimate meanings."

"Knowledge is always somebody's knowledge, situated in particular social contexts."

"The bureaucratization of meaning paradoxically both supports and threatens it."

"Consciousness itself is a social achievement, not a natural faculty."

"We are all engaged in the ongoing work of reality-maintenance."

"The taken-for-granted quality of everyday life masks its fundamentally constructed nature."

"Modern consciousness is characterized by the necessity of choosing one's ultimacies."

"Society provides the scaffolding upon which individual identity is built."

"The loss of religious certainty requires the invention of new meaning-structures."