C. Wright Mills Quotes

Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any personality. To be celebrated, to be wealthy, to have power requires access to major institutions.

- C. Wright Mills

The nearest the modern general or admiral comes to a small-arms encounter of any sort is at a duck hunt in the company of corporation executives at the retreat of Continental Motors, Inc.

- C. Wright Mills

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

- C. Wright Mills

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

- C. Wright Mills

America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub.

- C. Wright Mills

Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

- C. Wright Mills

What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited.

- C. Wright Mills

People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages.

- C. Wright Mills

Prestige is the shadow of money and power.

- C. Wright Mills

The principal cause of war is war itself.

- C. Wright Mills

Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real.

- C. Wright Mills