C. Wright Mills Quotes

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

I am totally fascinated by people and our history as I understand and continue to explore it. People have so much to give and so far to go and yet we have given and gone a great distance. It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.

The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition.

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

I am primarily concerned with the condition of man.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

Civilization develops man, and if he is, according to his whole character and destiny, made for development, civilization is his truly natural state …

What I see in science is a lot of imagination referring to things that are fundamental to what we are. Our cells, our history, our future, our place in the universe, our lack of place in the universe. That's poetry as far as I'm concerned.

How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.

Of all the things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients.

The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object-Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes it. It also paints men, it aggrandizes them, it exaggerates them, it creates heroes and gods. History only depicts man, and paints him such as he is.

Can it be that there is not enough space for man in this beautiful world, under those immeasurable, starry heavens?

To object that the facts about human nature set limits on our ability to change the world and ourselves makes about as much sense as the lament that our lack of wings sets limits on our ability to 'fly' as far as eagles under our own power.

Every man that ever lived craved perfect happiness, the detective poignantly reflected. But how can we have it when we know we’re going to die? Each joy was clouded by the knowledge it would end. And so nature had implanted in us a desire for something unattainable? No. It couldn’t be. It makes no sense. Every other striving implanted by nature had a corresponding object that wasn’t a phantom. Why this exception? the detective reasoned. It was nature making hunger when there wasn’t any food. We continue. We go on. Thus death proved life.

The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.

I think we can all recognize in some way or another that we as a human species, have been granted an incredible gift of intentionality and of consciousness. Perhaps this gift is a hint to how we should conduct our lives.

A man had to learn, it was his nature.

History teaches us virtue, but nature never ceases to teachh us vice.

Man is a greater miracle than any god he ever invented.

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment - a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.