90 Quotes by Ashley Montagu

The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society, and it is human beings who make a family-not the quantity of them, but the quality of them.

In our society the elderly are regarded as biodegradable and superfluous, instead of what they really represent: a biological elite who, with weathered wisom, have much to offer the world.

Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection.

The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof.

The indifference, callousness, and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering towards animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of human spirit.

It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record - and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the 'Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.' Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization.

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.

The idea is to die young as late as possible.

I want to die young at a ripe old age.