Quotations — Social Theory & Letters

Collections of passages from writers on society, modernity, power and the examined life — each quotation attributed to the work in which it appears, with page references where they were recorded.

These collections grew out of the reading notes of a health-promotion researcher who drew widely on social theory, philosophy and literature. They are gathered here as a reference for students and writers who want a passage at its source rather than as a free-floating epigram.

Social theory and the critical tradition

The largest group draws on the sociologists and philosophers who shaped twentieth-century thinking about modern society. Anthony Giddens on structuration, risk and the "runaway world"; Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse on the culture industry and one-dimensional society; Antonio Gramsci on hegemony and the role of intellectuals; and Ernst Bloch on utopia and hope. Together they map the questions critical theory asked of modernity — how power works through culture, how societies reproduce themselves, and where the openings for change might lie.

Politics, economy and letters

Alongside the theorists sit voices from politics, economics and literature: Milton Friedman on markets and economic freedom, Fidel Castro on revolution, Robert Pirsig on quality and the examined life, and the observing eyes of Paul Theroux and Kurt Vonnegut. A short collection of medical aphorisms from Hippocrates connects the literary strand back to the library's public-health core.

How the collections are sourced

Each page is built the same way: the passages are reproduced as recorded and grouped by theme, and every collection names the work the quotations are drawn from, with page numbers where they were noted. The aim is to let a reader trace a line back to its source — a quotation is far more useful when you can see which book and edition it came from than when it circulates as a detached aphorism. Where a thinker is represented by several works, the source editions are listed on the page itself. The collections are not exhaustive critical editions; they are a working reference, of the kind a researcher keeps to hand, and they are most valuable read alongside the original texts rather than as a substitute for them.

All collections

• Anthony Giddens — Selected Quotationson modernity, structuration and the runaway world
• Antonio Gramsci — Selected Quotationshegemony, culture and the intellectuals
• Ernst Bloch — Selected Quotationsutopia, hope and the not-yet
• Fidel Castro — Selected Quotationsrevolution and politics
• Herbert Marcuse — Selected Quotationsone-dimensional society and critical theory
• Hippocrates — Selected Quotationsmedicine and the physician’s art
• Kurt Vonnegut — Selected Quotationsfiction, war and dark humour
• Milton Friedman — Selected Quotationsmarkets, money and economic freedom
• P. J. O'Rourke — Selected Quotationspolitics and satire
• Paul Theroux — Selected Quotationstravel and the observing eye
• Quotations from authorspassages gathered by author
• Quotes: Geoffrey Roseselected passages
• Quotes: Lifereflections on living
• Robert Pirsig — Selected Quotationsquality, reason and the examined life
• Theodor W. Adorno — Selected Quotationscritical theory and the culture industry

Last reviewed June 14, 2026.