Robert K. Merton > Quotes

“Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.”
― Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure

“Anticipatory plagiarism occurs when someone steals your original idea and publishes it a hundred years before you were born.”
― Robert Merton

“Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as though it is not necessary even to study Caesar in order to understand him. Yet we know that the interplay of theory and research makes both for understanding of the specific case and expansion of the general rule.”
― Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure

“A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior.”
― Robert King Merton

“Not understanding what the role of technique is doing to him and to his world, modern man is beset by anxiety and a feeling of insecurity. He tries to adapt to changes he cannot comprehend. The conflict of propaganda takes the place of the debate of ideas. Technique smothers the ideas that put its rule in question and filters out for public discussion only those ideas that are in substantial accord with the values created by a technical civilization.”
― Robert K. Merton

“Ours is a progressively technical civilization.... It is a civilization committed to the quest for continually improved means to carelessly examined ends. Indeed, technique transforms ends into means. What was once prized in its own right now becomes worthwhile only if it helps achieve something else. And, conversely, technique turns means into ends. 'Know-how' takes on an ultimate value.”
― Robert K. Merton