The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self. Charles Horton Cooley More Quotes by Charles Horton Cooley More Quotes From Charles Horton Cooley There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point. Charles Horton Cooley attacking surface way Society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind and what my mind thinks about what your mind thinks about my mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not perform these feats is not properly in the game. Charles Horton Cooley self games thinking An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. Charles Horton Cooley failure creative art As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it. Charles Horton Cooley eye reflection water The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society. Charles Horton Cooley imagination facts people Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh...to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies. Charles Horton Cooley army decision dark If love closes, the self contracts and hardens: the mind having nothing else to occupy its attention and give it that change and renewal it requires, busies itself more and more with self-feeling, which takes on narrow and disgusting forms, like avarice, arrogance and fatuity. Charles Horton Cooley self feelings giving Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread. Charles Horton Cooley individuality bread men No matter what a man does, he is not fully sane or human unless there is a spirit of freedom in him, a soul unconfined by purpose and larger than the practicable world. Charles Horton Cooley freedom soul men Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God. Charles Horton Cooley life-and-love failure fall We are born to action and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first. Charles Horton Cooley acting action firsts The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them. Charles Horton Cooley obscurity issues mind To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self. Charles Horton Cooley hero sports past Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom. Charles Horton Cooley increase freedom causes When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him. Charles Horton Cooley gamer care games One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide. Charles Horton Cooley suicide writing art The social self is simply any idea, or system of ideas, drawn from the communicative life, that the mind cherishes as its own. Charles Horton Cooley self mind ideas To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change. Charles Horton Cooley vacation carpe-diem travel Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also. Charles Horton Cooley anger order art Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble. Charles Horton Cooley individuality doe men
