Nu putem să înţelegem corect "omul" dacă îl considerăm o făptură biologică izolată, un mănunchi de

reflexe sau un grup de instincte, un "câmp inteligibil" sau un sistem în sine şi despre sine. Orice ar
mai putea fi el, omul este un agent istoric şi social care nu poate fi înţeles decât într-o relaţie strânsă
şi complexă cu structurile sociale şi istorice. (Mills, Imaginatia Sociologică)

Societatea nu este numai ceva care absoarbe, cu intensitate egală, sentimentele şi energia
individului, ea este şi puterea care le reglează. (Durkheim, Sinuciderea)

Crima este normală, fiindcă o societate în care ar lipsi este cu totul imposibilă. (Durkheim, Regulile
metodei sociologice)

Nu există cuvinte, chiar şi printre cele pe care le folosim în mod obişnuit, a căror accepţie să nu
depăşească cu mai mult sau mai puţin limitele experienţei noastre personale. Un termen exprimă nu
de puţine ori lucruri pe care nu le-am perceput niciodată, experienţe pe care nu le-am făcut sau la
care nu am fost niciodată martori. Chiar şi atunci când cunoaştem unele dintre obiectele la care se
referă, ele nu ilustrează decât în calitate de exemple particulare, care, prin ele însele, nu ar fi
niciodată suficiente pentru a o constitui. Cuvântul condensează prin urmare o întreagă ştiinţă la care
nu am colaborat, o ştiinţă mai mult decât individuală. (Durkheim, Regulile metodei sociologice)

Devianţa este non-conformism faţă de un set dat de norme, care sunt acceptate de un număr
seminficativ de oameni, în cadrul unei comunităţi sau a unei societăţi. (Giddens, Sociologie)

Social scientists “attempt to understand the world from the subjects’ points of view and unfold the
meaning of their lived world”. (Kvale, Dominance through interviews and dialogues)

By primary groups I mean those characterized by intimate face-to-face association and cooperation.
They are primary in several senses but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social
nature and ideals of individuals. The result of intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion
of individualities in a common whole, so that one's very self, for many purposes at least, is the
common life and purpose of the group. Perhaps the simplest way of describing this wholeness is by
saying that it is a ''we.'' (Cooley, Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind)

The social self is simply any idea, or system of ideas, drawn from the communicative life, that the
mind cherishes as its own. Self-feeling has its chief scope within the general life, not outside of it; the
special endeavor or tendency of which it is the emotional aspect finds its principal field of exercise in
a world of personal forces, reflected in the mind by a world of personal impressions.
As connected with the thought of other persons the self idea is always a consciousness of the
peculiar or differentiated aspect of one's life, because that is the aspect that has to be sustained by
purpose and endeavor, and its more aggressive forms tend to attach themselves to whatever one
finds to be at once congenial to one's own tendencies and at variance with those of others with
whom one is in mental contact. It is here that they are most needed to serve their function of
stimulating characteristic activity, of fostering those personal variations which the general plan of life
seems to require. (Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order)

Civilization is itself the necessary consequence of the changes which are produced in the volume and
in the density of societies. If science, art, and economic activity develop it is in accordance with a
necessity which is imposed upon men. It is because there is, for them, no other way of living in the
new conditions in which they have been placed. From the time that the number of individuals among
whom social relations are established begins to increase, they can maintain themselves only by
greater specialization, harder work, and intensification of their faculties. From this general
stimulation, there inevitably results a much higher degree of culture. From this point of view,
civilization appears, not as an end which moves people by its attraction for them, not as a good
foreseen and desired in advance, of which they seek to assure themselves the largest possible part,
but as the effect of a cause, as the necessary resultant of a given state. It is not the pole towards
which historic development is moving and to which men seek to get nearer in order to be happier or
better, for neither happiness nor morality necessarily increases with the intensity of life. They move
because they must move, and what determines the speed of this march is the more or less strong
pressure which they exercise upon one another, according to their number. (Durkheim, Social
Division of Labour)

Innovation occurs when an individual accepts the goals of society, but rejects or lacks the socially
legitimate means of achieving them. Innovation, the mode of adaptation most associated with
criminal behavior, explains the high rate of crime committed by uneducated and poor individuals
who do not have access to legitimate means of achieving the social goals of wealth and power…
Rebellion occurs when an individual rejects both culturally defined goals and means and substitutes
new goals and means. For example, rebels may use social or political activism to replace the goal of
personal wealth with the goal of social justice and equality. (Merton, Social theory and social
structure)

The fundamental starting point is the concept of social systems of action. The interaction of
individual actors, that is, takes place under such conditions that it is possible to treat such a process
of interaction as a system in the scientific sense and subject it to the same order of theoretical
analysis which has been successfully applied to other types of systems in other sciences. (Parsons,
The Social System)

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of
nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner
stimuli. Man is a differentiating creature. His mind is stimulated by the difference between a
momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ
only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show
regular and habitual contrasts—all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid
crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the
unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the
metropolis creates. With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic,
occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and rural life with
reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis exacts from man as a
discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural life. Here the rhythm of
life and sensory mental imagery flows more slowly, more habitually, and more evenly. Precisely in
this connection the sophisticated character of metropolitan psychic life becomes understandable—as
over against small town life which rests more upon deeply felt and emotional relationships.(Simmel,
The Metropolis and Mental Life)

the fact that someone is poor does not mean that he belongs to the specific social category of the
'poor' . . . . It is only from the moment that [the poor] are assisted . . . that they become part of a
group characterized by poverty. This group does not remain united by interaction among its
members, but by the collective attitude which society as a whole adopts toward it. . . . Poverty
cannot be defined in itself as a quantitative state, but only in terms of the social reaction resulting
from a specific situation. . . . Poverty is a unique sociological phenomenon: a number of individuals
who, out of a purely individual fate, occupy a specific organic position within the whole; but this
position is not determined by this fate and condition, but rather by the fact that others . . . attempt
to correct this condition. (Simmel, The Stranger)