Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the mouldin….

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

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

The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the human….

... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one….

War is an old, old plant on this earth, and a natural history of it would have to tell us under what soil conditions it grows, where it plays havoc, ….

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

... with every Asiatic country where we operate in cooperation with the existing culture, the need for intelligent understanding of that country and ….

The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free m….

Our national experience in Americanizing millions of Europeans whose chief wish was to become Americans has been a heady wine which has made us belie….

The tough-minded ... respect difference. Their goal is a world made safe for differences, where the United States may be American to the hilt without….

An observer will see the bizarre developments of behavior only in alien cultures, not his own. Nevertheless this is obviously a local and temporary b….

We do not see the lens through which we look..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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..

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