"Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what the connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world."
— C. Wright Mills, qtd. in Linda Colley, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History. New York: Anchor Books, 2008.
