Catholic Church Quotes

Thus, in accordance with the spirit of the Historical School, knowledge of the principles of the human world falls within that world itself, and the human sciences form an independent system.

Understanding something in one way does not preclude understanding it in other ways.

It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct-- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

Obviously something is wrong with the entire argument of "obviousness".

General Systems Theory, a related modern concept [to holism], says that each variable in any system interacts with the other variables so thoroughly that cause and effect cannot be separated. A simple variable can be both cause and effect. Reality will not be still. And it cannot be taken apart! You cannot understand a cell, a rat, a brain structure, a family, a culture if you isolate it from its context. Relationship is everything.

The traditional boundaries between politics, culture, technology, finance, national security, and ecology are disappearing. You cannot explain one without referring to them all.

A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.

There is no social question, there are social questions.

There is more than two sides. Facts are often apart from what both sides say about each other.

There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth.

The Social Sciences will concern themselves with the rationalization of social control... the control of human behavior.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

The more one-dimensional an explanation of something complex and far reaching, the greater the grounds for skepticism.

The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.

I've always been interested in projects that work at multiple levels.

I find the world just too complex to embrace a single ideological point of view.

I often advocate that we look at many sides of an issue, walk in someone else's shoes, and identify and reject false choices.

I believe it's worth observing terrible things people have done as clearly and rationally as we can to show that our monsters are not caricatures.

In life, you always look at the total picture, not just a segment of it.

We're all multi-sided. We should all keep that in mind.

Laws of physics don't necessarily apply to real-life political situations.

The truth is complicated, and few people are actually monsters.

Individuals are complex and deserve to be recognized as such.

In the past 20 years scientists from very diverse disciplines - anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, psychologists - have all moved to a much more hopeful, optimistic view of human nature.

Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline... We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers.