Top 15 Robert D. Putnam Quotes

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

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

Social capital may turn out to be a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, effective computer-mediated communication.

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

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.

Social dislocation can easily breed a reactionary form of nostalgia.

TV-based politics is to political action as watching ER is to saving someone in distress.

Parental wealth is especially important for social mobility, because it can provide informal insurance that allows kids to take more risks in search of more reward.

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.

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

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

"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."

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.

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.

Generally speaking, lower-tier grandparents mostly donate time, replacing parental resources, whereas upper-tier grandparents mostly donate money, supplementing parental resources