Ruth Benedict Quotes

36 quotes in 421 categories

• The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers.
• The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.
• A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.
• No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of…
• I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.
• Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the…
• We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.
• In world history, those who have helped to build the same culture are not necessarily of one race, and those of the same race have…
• The peoples of the earth are one family.
• I haven't strength of mind not to need a career.
• The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and…
• Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.
• Virtue begins when we dedicate ourselves actively to the job of gratitude.
• I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.
• The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.
• The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community
• If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an…
• Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex
• I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.
• As a matter of history great developments in art have often been remarkably separate from religious motivation and use.

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