David Riesman

"The Autonomous. In the case of someone like Bertrand Russell or Toscanini, one feels an essential aliveness of spirit that reflexively keeps the body alive too, in the face of the inevitable physiolog…"

"If we observe the aging of individuals, in the period after middle life, it seems to me that we can distinguish three ideal-typical outcomes. Some individuals bear within themselves some psychological…"

"The premonition of death may for many be a stimulus to novelty of experience: the imminence of death serves to sweep away the inessential preoccupations for those who do not flee from the thought of d…"

"A spurious democracy has influenced both our research methods and our research subjects ."

"We all know the type of American executive or professional man who does not allow himself to age, but by what appears to be almost sheer will keeps himself “well-preserved,” as if in creosote. … The w…"

"The ethical regime was quite definitely Ptolemaic, revolving around the small group of Jews, not the larger Gentile group—and, accordingly, they learned to remain unimpressed by Gentile temporal power…"

"Those who are excluded from meaningful work are, by and large, excluded from meaningful play."

"Social Science … led us to the fallacy that, since all men have their being in culture and as a result of culture, they owe a debt to that culture which even a lifetime of altruism could not repay."