The principal cause of war is war itself.

History is the shank of the social sciences.

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.

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

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

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

For we cannot adequately understand 'man' as an isolated biological creature, as a bundle of reflexes or a set of instincts, as an 'intelligible field' or a system in and of itself. Whatever else he may be, man is a social and an historical actor who must be understood, if at all, in close and intricate interplay with social and historical structures