Robert D. Putnam Quotes

Our national myths often exaggerate the role of the individual heroes and understate the importance of collective effort.

Poor kids, through no fault of their own, are less prepared by their families, their schools, and their communities to develop their God-given talents as fully as rich kids. For economic productivity and growth, our country needs as much talent as we can find, and we certainly can't afford to waste it. The opportunity gap imposes on all of us both real costs and what economists term opportunity costs.

Financial capital - the wherewithal for mass marketing - has steadily replaced social capital - that is, grassroots citizen networks - as the coin of the realm.

Archipelago was created with the vision of making markets better for all investors, a vision that we share with the NYSE and has led us to this historic day. I am extremely proud of the innovation, the technology and the value Archipelago has brought to its customers and shareholders and am excited about combining our strengths with those of the NYSE.

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: "Will work for food." And what they don't think about is that person who's struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line.

Stressful conditions from outside school are much more likely to intrude into the classroom in high poverty schools. Every one of ten stressors is two to three times more common in high poverty schools
Student hunger, unstable housing, lack of medical and dental care, caring for family members, immigration issues, community violence and safety issues.

People divorced from community, occupation, and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.

How well you do in life shouldn't depend on how well your parents did.

Schools themselves aren't creating the opportunity gap: the gap is already large by the time children enter kindergarten and does not grow as children progress through school. The gaps in cognitive achievement by level of maternal education that we observe at age 18-powerful predictors of who goes to college and who does not - are mostly present at age 6when children enter school. Schooling plays only a minor role in alleviating or creating test score gaps.

Unequal Democracy is the sort of book to which every political scientist should aspire
it is methodologically rigorous, conceptually serious, and above all, it addresses urgent concerns of our fellow citizens. As Bartels shows, much of what we think we know about the politics of economic inequality is dead wrong. Bartels's perplexing and often unexpected discoveries should help refocus the gathering public debate about inequality and what to do about it.

People may go to the library looking mainly for information, but they find each other there.

Busy people tend to forgo the one activity - TV watching _ that is most lethal to community involvement

A society that relies on generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the same reason that money is more efficient than barter. Trust lubricates social life. Networks of civic engagement also facilitate coordination and communication and amplify information about the trustworthiness of other individuals.

Slavery was, in fact, a social system designed to destroy social capital among slaves and between slaves and freemen.

None of the people watching 'Big Brother' will bring you chicken soup if you get sick.

If we think of politics as an industry, we might delight in its new "labour-saving efficiency", but if we think of politics as democratic deliberation, to leave people out is to miss the whole point of the exercise.

Social dislocation can easily breed a reactionary form of nostalgia.

School performance, public health, crime rates, clinical depression, tax compliance, philanthropy, race relations, community development, census returns, teen suicide, economic productivity, campaign finance, even simple human happiness - all are demonstrably affected by how (and whether) we connect with our family and friends and neighbours and co-workers.

Look, we ought to do this for our kids ... We ought to have a high school so that every kid who grows up here - they're all our kids - gets a good high school education.

We all know that the way to get something done is to give it to a busy person.

Upper-class parents enable their kids to form weak ties by exposing them more often to organized activities, professionals, and other adults. Working-class children, on the other hand, are more likely to interact regularly only with kin and neighborhood children, which limits their formation of valuable weak ties.