Robert K. Merton

The ethos of science involves the functionally necessary demand that theories or generalizations be evaluated in [terms of] their logical consistency and consonance with facts.

— Robert K. Merton

The extreme emphasis upon the accumulation of wealth as a symbol of success in our society militates against the completely effective control of institutionally regulated modes of acquiring a fortune.

— Robert K. Merton

Scientific research is not conducted in a social vacuum.

— Robert K. Merton

No man knows fully what has shaped his own thinking

— Robert K. Merton

By social structure is meant that organized set of social relationships in which members of the society or group are variously implicated.

— Robert K. Merton

[Merton states that anomie represents] An acute disjunction between the cultural norms and goals and the socially structured capacities of members of the group to act in accord with them.

— Robert K. Merton

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come "true". This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

— Robert K. Merton