68 Quotes by Ruth Benedict

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.

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

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

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

Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.

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.

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

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

If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits