C. Wright Mills

History is the shank of the social sciences.

— C. Wright Mills

Prestige is the shadow of money and power.

— C. Wright Mills

All politics is a struggle for power; the ultimate kind of power is violence.

— C. Wright Mills

The principal cause of war is war itself.

— C. Wright Mills

My plans have always exceeded my capacities and energies

— C. Wright Mills

IBM Plus Reality Plus Humanism = Sociology.

— C. Wright Mills

The immediate cause of World War III is the military preparation of it.

— C. Wright Mills

To overcome the academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose,

— C. Wright Mills

Fate has to do with events in history that are the summary and unintended results of innumerable decisions of innumerable men.

— C. Wright Mills

Each day men sell little pieces if themselves in order to try to buy then back each night and weekend.

— C. Wright Mills

The means of effective communication are being expropriated from the intellectual worker.

— C. Wright Mills

As a proportion of the labor force, fewer individuals manipulate things, more handle people and symbols.

— C. Wright Mills

In the world of the celebrity, the hierarchy of publicity has replaced the hierarchy of descent and even of great wealth.

— C. Wright Mills

You can never really understand an individual unless you also understand the society,historical time period in which they live,personal troubles, and social…

— C. Wright Mills

Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real

— C. Wright Mills

Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

— C. Wright Mills

The life-fate of the modern individual depends not only upon the family into which he was born or which he enters by…

— C. Wright Mills

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a…

— C. Wright Mills

Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles…

— C. Wright Mills

No one can be truly powerful unless he has access to the command of major institutions, for it is over these institutional…

— C. Wright Mills

Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any…

— C. Wright Mills

If we accept the Greek's definition of the idiot as an altogether private man, then we must conclude that many American citizens…

— C. Wright Mills

For the first time in American history, men in authority are talking about an 'emergency' without a foreseeable end... such men as…

— C. Wright Mills

According to your belief [Christian clergy], my kind of man — secular, prideful, agnostic and all the rest of it — is…

— C. Wright Mills

“The idea that the millionaire finds nothing but a sad, empty place at the top of this society; the idea that the…

— C. Wright Mills

Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary…

— C. Wright Mills

The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of…

— C. Wright Mills

The broadening of the economic order which came to be seated in the individual property owner... dramatized by Jefferson's purchase of the…

— C. Wright Mills

What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes…

— C. Wright Mills

To have peace and not war, the drift toward a war economy, as facilitated by the moves and the demands of the…

— C. Wright Mills

For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables…

— C. Wright Mills

To say that you can 'have experience,' means, for one thing, that your past plays into and affects your present, and that…

— C. Wright Mills

“Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total…

— C. Wright Mills

“The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings…

— C. Wright Mills

I try to be objective. I do not claim to be detached.

— C. Wright Mills

Let every man be his own methodologist, let every man be his own theorist

— C. Wright Mills

Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store…

— C. Wright Mills

People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages.

— C. Wright Mills

To accept opinions is to gain the good solid feeling of being correct without having to think.

— C. Wright Mills

Much work is merely a way to make money; much leisure is merely a way to spend it.

— C. Wright Mills