Prestige is the shadow of money and power.

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

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

By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.

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

It is the political task of the social scientist — as of any liberal educator — continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work — and, as an educator, in his life as well — this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society.

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