Peter L. Berger

He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.

— Peter L. Berger

So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy…

— Peter L. Berger

“We have had no polemic interest in writing this book. It would be foolish to deny, however, that our enthusiasm for the…

— Peter L. Berger

The human organism is thus still developing biologically while already standing in a relationship to its environmont. In other words, the process…

— Peter L. Berger

“Institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an…

— Peter L. Berger

To be located in society means to be at the intersection point of specific social forces. Commonly one ignores these forces one…

— Peter L. Berger

If you are good for nothing else, you can still serve as a bad example.

— Peter L. Berger

“most historical relationships are ironical in character, or, to put it differently, that the course of history has little to do with…

— Peter L. Berger

“Reification implies that man is capable of forgetting his own authorship of the human world, and further, that the dialectic between man,…

— Peter L. Berger

If the cultural elite has its way, the U.S. will be much more like Europe

— Peter L. Berger

I'm sure Putnam is right that there's been a decline in certain kinds of organizations like bowling leagues. But people participate in…

— Peter L. Berger

“Everyday life presents itself as a reality interpreted by men and subjectively meaningful to them as a coherent world. As sociologists we…

— Peter L. Berger

“Knowledge about society is thus a realization in the double sense of the word, in the sense of apprehending the objectivated social…

— Peter L. Berger

One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call…

— Peter L. Berger

“One may first point to the obvious fact that a given social order precedes any individual organismic development. That is, world-openness, while…

— Peter L. Berger

Capitalism has been one of the most dynamic forces in human history, transforming one society after another, and today it has become…

— Peter L. Berger

The negative side to globalization is that it wipes out entire economic systems and in doing so wipes out the accompanying culture

— Peter L. Berger

Religion is the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being-human or otherwise-i.e., belief in a cosmos, the…

— Peter L. Berger

“The transmission of the meaning of an institution is based on the social recognition of that institution as a “permanent” solution to…

— Peter L. Berger

“Therapy entails the application of conceptual machinery to ensure that actual or potential deviants stay within the institutionalized definitions of reality, or,…

— Peter L. Berger

I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument…

— Peter L. Berger

“As more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time to the subjects of…

— Peter L. Berger

In a market economy, however, the individual has some possibility of escaping from the power of the state

— Peter L. Berger

In science, as in love, a concentration on technique is likely to lead to impotence.

— Peter L. Berger

“In our paradigmatic example, A and B, the original creators of the social world, can always reconstruct the circumstances under which their…

— Peter L. Berger