The human organism is thus still developing biologically while already standing in a relationship to its environmont. In other words, the process of becoming man takes place in an interrelationship with an environment. (...) From the moment of birth, man's organismic development, and indeed a large part of his biological being as such, are subjected to continuing socially determined interference.

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

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 and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization

In acute suffering the need for meaning is as strong or stronger than the need for happiness.

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 substance

Capitalism has been one of the most dynamic forces in human history, transforming one society after another, and today it has become established as an international system determining the economic fate of most of mankind.

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