Ruth Benedict Quotes

Racism is the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority.

Liberty is the one thing no man can have unless he grants it to others.

I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.

A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.

There are two kinds of opportunities: one which we chance upon, the other which we create.

The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.

We do not see the lens through which we look.

Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior.

The trouble is not that we are never happy-it is that happiness is so episodical.

Oh, I long to prove myself by writing! The best seems to die in me when I give it up. It is the self I love
not this efficient, philanthropic self.

It is strange how long we rebel against a platitude until suddenly in a different lingo it looms up again as the only verity.

What really binds men together is their culture, the ideas and the standards they have in common.

I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.

Experience, contrary to common belief, is mostly imagination.

The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.

The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural.

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.

Virtue begins when we dedicate ourselves actively to the job of gratitude.

Racism remains in the eyes of history ... merely another instance of the persecution of minorities for the advantage of those in power.

The arrogance of race prejudice is an arrogance which defies what is scientifically known of human races.

Traditional Anglo-Saxon intolerance is a local and temporal culture trait like any other.

I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.

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

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 thinking.

As a matter of history great developments in art have often been remarkably separate from religious motivation and use.

The peoples of the earth are one family.

It is my necessary breath of life to understand and expression is the only justification of life that I can feel without prodding.

Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.

The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers

Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.

War is, we have been forced to admit, even in the face of its huge place in our civilization, an asocial trait.

We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.