Peter L. Berger Quotes

33 quotes in 602 categories

• Even if one is interested only in one's own society, which is one's prerogative, one can understand that society much better by comparing it with…
• When certain branches of the economy become obsolete, as in the case of the steel industry, not only do jobs disappear, which is obviously a…
• In science, as in love, a concentration on technique is likely to lead to impotence.
• But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in…
• I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization…
• The negative side to globalization is that it wipes out entire economic systems and in doing so wipes out the accompanying culture
• He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: The [believer] who sups with…
• In acute suffering the need for meaning is as strong or stronger than the need for happiness.
• There are times in history when the dark drums of God can barely be heard amid the noises of this world. Then it is only…
• A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, 'So…
• To be located in society means to be at the intersection point of specific social forces. Commonly one ignores these forces one also knows that…
• One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism
• Some people think that as the Chinese economy becomes more and more capitalistic it will inevitably become more democratic
• There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values in the churches is mainly…
• It has been true in Western societies and it seems to be true elsewhere that you do not find democratic systems apart from capitalism, or…
• Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy
• If the cultural elite has its way, the U.S. will be much more like Europe
• The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and…
• We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization
• The problem with liberal Protestantism in America is not that it has not been orthodox enough, but that it has lost a lot of religious…

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