Peter L. Berger Quotes

If I wasn't doing this, I'd be in school studying political science or socioeconomic something. I love visiting different cultures and finding out how they make up a society.

No society lies nearer to the cyclonic path of the forces of world change than the United States, and few societies are more intellectually aware of the nature of the issues that have to be faced.

Since the war [WWII], the world has been rushing forward at an unprecedented and exhilarating speed … Yet Britain lags behind, lacking the will or the plan which can bring this future within the reach of us all.

Countries are not like financial markets. Social change cannot be executed as swiftly as credit-default swaps. You cannot sell short on social commitments and practical responsibilities.

… modern civilization … enables us to cure sickness on a huge scale and to destroy each other on a huge scale. It enables us to liberate each other on a huge scale and to tyrannize each other on a huge scale…. There is no evidence of any continuous upward line of social progress

'The Sound of Silk' will serve as a lens for larger questions about cultural identity in a global society and the potential for individuals to act as catalysts for change.

Indian cinema is changing not because of outside pressure but because of inside pressure. Society is changing. Obviously, ideas change because of globalization, because of the huge middle class that is mostly first generation.

For all the social changes in China can be traced to their early beginnings in the days when the new tools or vehicles of commerce and locomotion first brought the Chinese people into unavoidable contact with the strange ways and novel goods of the Western peoples.

Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe.

The modern world is one wherein every nation has to develop the strength of which its citizens are capable. The independent status of the individual, his thoughts and actions become a thing of the past.

I can remember when I first went into the Himalayan area way back in 1951. Money, for instance, was not important at all to the local people. But now, finance has become just as important to them as it is to us, and this is a change maybe not for the better.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.

Modern culture is a tremendous force.

In Europe, there are many filmmakers working in the same territory: immigration, and the things that are most disruptive to European life today. That's not a judgment. I think it's good that cinema looks at such things.

Things change in different countries as people grow, and as generations change.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

We live in a niche world.

We live in a very different world than the one that we inherited from our parents and from our grandparents. Times are changing, and states must adapt to win.

The world is changing very profoundly.

Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society.

Education can also be used as a soft power and as a soft force to transform societies. When I say transform societies it means we can tackle issues in political, social, cultural, economic areas. These are the most important things.

Naturally enough, I couldn't have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.

In Europe the various ranks of society are, like the strata of the earth, fixed and fossilized. There can be no great change without a terrible upheaval, a social earthquake.

The world is very different today than it was in 1968.