Pierre Bourdieu Quotes
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher whose work fundamentally reshaped the twentieth-century social sciences. Drawing on long ethnographic work in Algeria during the war of independence and on extensive empirical study of French education and culture, he developed the concepts of habitus, field, and cultural capital that have become standard vocabulary in sociology, education, and anthropology. The quotes below are attributed to Pierre Bourdieu, organized by topic.
Pierre Bourdieu on Mind
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Habitus is the embodied history of social position.”
Pierre Bourdieu on Politics
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.”
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Cultural capital is at least as decisive as economic capital in shaping life chances.”
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Symbolic violence is exercised most powerfully when it is not seen as violence.”
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“Sociology is a martial art.”
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Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:
“The disenchantment of the world is the deepest of modernity's effects.”