Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One has to devote oneself to a particular pursuit. To be successful at anything, you have to make a total commitment to it.
With all its technical sophistication, the photographic camera remains a coarse device compared to the human hand and brain.
Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.
The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake.
You know, once something freezes, it's solid. That's the key to the arctic - they didn't fear the cold, they made use of it.
The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What happens is that the family 'gets together' alone.
The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.
A truly English protest march would see us all chanting: 'What do we want? GRADUAL CHANGE! When do we want it? IN DUE COURSE!
It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.
It is strange how long we rebel against a platitude until suddenly in a different lingo it looms up again as the only verity.
I do not criticize religion as such, but I criticize the concept and the definition of "religion" - as I said in Genealogies.
Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night.
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.
There seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.
It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.
What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the primrose to the orchid, and all of them to me, and me to you?
A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.
Heroes are never perfect, but they're brave, they're authentic, they're courageous, determined, discreet, and they've got grit.
The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.
I think what bothers me so much of the time, is they take the data and theory and distort it. They must know they're distorting.
Verbal and nonverbal activity is a unified whole, and theory and methodology should be organized or created to treat it as such.
The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.
Objects are what matter. Only they carry the evidence that throughout the centuries something really happened among human beings.
You don't just magically flip some evolutionary switch somewhere and transmute a quadruped into an upright-walking bipedal human.
Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.
I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
What we're already doing is communism. The first step we have to make is to realize that we're already closer to it than we think.
All mammals undergo a certain degree of diversification. Darwin knew that. When he drew a family tree, it had many branches on it.
Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.
I am working on a technical paper on compassion. So I am reading everything I can on the subject, including my own mind and heart.
We all owe life a death, an inevitable death which we can meet. But the unnecessary death that wastes life denies all consolation.
It is my necessary breath of life to understand and expression is the only justification of life that I can feel without prodding.
A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. ... Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.
I never say that evolution is a fact. Evolution is a theory. It's much more important than a fact, because theories explain things.
If the scholar feels that he must know everything about any topic, he is in trouble - and will not publish with a clear conscience.
Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor anyone in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.
What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.
The histories of the poor and the powerless are as important as those of their conquerors, their colonizers, their kings and queens.
if we center our lives on BMWs, RVs, VCRs, PCs and the other acronyms of consumerism, we cannot expect our children to do otherwise.
The best lives and stories are made up of minute particulars that somehow are also universal and of use to others as well as oneself.
Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor any one in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.
Neoliberalism isn't an economic program - it's a political program designed to produce hopelessness and kill any future alternatives.
Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.
If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.
So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.
If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing.
Evolution is a fact. It is the best explanation of what is known from observations. It's a theory as powerful as the theory of gravity.
If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present.
Racism remains in the eyes of history ... merely another instance of the persecution of minorities for the advantage of those in power.