Charles Max Mason Quotes

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.

That man is a creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his conformity and define his deviancy.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices.

My students often ask me, 'What is sociology?' And I tell them, 'It's the study of the way in which human beings are shaped by things that they don't see.'

Society receives its momentum from power.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political, and moral beliefs that control our actions.

The State is the nation socially organized.

Public opinion is the atmosphere of society, without which the forces of the individual would collapse, and all the institutions of society fly into atoms.

The attempt to regulate, control, and prescribe all manner of conduct and social relations is very old. It was always the practice of primitive peoples.

Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements

I'm more into human nature than politics. But they're intertwined. Obviously, I live in civilization, so politics are part of my life.

Normal social behavior requires that we be able to recognize identities in spite of change. Unless we can do so, there can be no human society as we know it.

In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

Our society, including the liberals, must understand that there must be order.

We are what make up society.

The community of masses of human beings has produced an order of life in regulated channels which connects individuals in a technically functioning organisation, but not inwardly from the historicity of their souls.

Cognitive neuroscience, and social theorists from Weber to Bourdieu, have recognized that humans act, most of the time, habitually, not reflectively. Both at intrastate and inter-states levels, habits play critical roles in mitigating uncertainty, providing a sense of order, and entrench patterns of cooperation or enmity.

Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.'

Society just has a way of inhibiting you, which is good and bad.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

People are going to behave however the social norms permit, and beyond that.

All of civility depends on being able to contain the rage of individuals.