The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.

David Riesman

David Riesman

Related Quotes

America is not only big and rich, it is mysterious; and its capacity for the humorous or ironical concealment of its interests matches that of the legendary inscrutable Chinese.

— David Riesman

America is not only big and rich, it is mysterious; and its capacity for the humorous or ironical concealment of its interests matches that of the legendary inscrutable Chinese. - The Lonely Crowd.

— David Riesman

The mass media are the wholesalers; the peer-groups, the retailers of the communications industry

— David Riesman

Why, I ask, isn't it possible that advertising as a whole is a fantastic fraud, presenting an image of America taken seriously by no one, least of all by the advertising men who create it?

— David Riesman

Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us.

— David Riesman