Georg Simmel

The metropolis is the site of the most extreme individualization and the most extreme standardization.

The more rationalized and objectified life becomes, the more it loses its meaning and purpose.

Money is the most perfect symbol of the abstractness of modern life.

The individual's freedom is always a freedom in relation to others.

The metropolis is a place where the individual is constantly confronted with a multitude of stimuli, leading to a heightened nervous sensibility.

The more society becomes a machine, the more the individual becomes a cog in that machine.

Money is the great equalizer, reducing all qualitative differences to quantitative ones.

The form of sociation is the most fundamental concept of sociology.

The metropolis is a place where the individual is forced to develop a protective shell, a blasé attitude, in order to cope with the overwhelming stimuli.

The tragedy of culture is that it creates a world of objective forms that become alien to the subjective spirit that created them.

Money is the most abstract and universal medium of exchange.

Society is not a substance, but a process of interaction.

The metropolis is a place where the individual is both free from the constraints of traditional society and exposed to the anonymity of the crowd.

The more developed a society, the more it tends to separate the individual from his immediate environment and integrate him into larger, more abstract systems.

The individual's personality is shaped by his interactions with others.

The metropolis is a place where the individual is constantly confronted with the tension between individuality and conformity.

The essence of modern culture is the increasing rationalization and intellectualization of life.

Money is the symbol of the triumph of means over ends.

Sociology is the study of the forms of human interaction.

The metropolis is a place where the individual is forced to develop a highly intellectualized and calculating attitude towards life.