The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of.

The inequality between the world's individuals is staggering.

Why do I write books? Why do I think? Why should I be passionate? Because things could be different, they could be made better.

If only evil things are done by evil people... Life would be then safe, morally elevated, cozy - we know how to spot evil people and what to do with them to pay for their crimes.

What has been cut apart cannot be glued back together. Abandon all hope of totality, future as well as past, you who enter the world of fluid modernity.

Throughout early modernity there were very strong pressures on Jews to assimilate. Assimilating meant cutting your ties with the community of origin.

We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.