Ruth Benedict Quote: "The life-history of the individual is first and ..."

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The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.
Ruth Benedict / Anthropologist
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The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.
⇛ Ruth Benedict (Anthropologist)

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The peoples of the earth are one family.

Ruth Benedict Anthropologist

We do not see the lens through which we look.

Ruth Benedict Anthropologist

I haven't strength of mind not to need a career.

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Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex

Ruth Benedict Anthropologist

Above all we need, particularly as children, the reassuring presence of a visible community, an intimate group that enfolds us with understanding and love, and that becomes an object of our spontaneous loyalty, as a criterion and point of reference for the rest of the human race.

Lewis Mumford Historian

Young people often serve as scapegoats for the challenges communities face. At the same time, they are routinely pushed away from connecting to their communities as serious problem-solvers capable of changing the world.