1001Philosophers

Pierre Bourdieu Quotes on Politics

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher whose work fundamentally reshaped the twentieth-century social sciences. This page collects quotes attributed to Pierre Bourdieu on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.”

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “Habitus is the embodied history of social position.”

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “Cultural capital is at least as decisive as economic capital in shaping life chances.”

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “Symbolic violence is exercised most powerfully when it is not seen as violence.”

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “Sociology is a martial art.”

  • Attributed to Pierre Bourdieu:

    “The disenchantment of the world is the deepest of modernity's effects.”