68 Quotes by Ruth Benedict

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

Western civilization, because of fortuitous historical circumstances, has spread itself more widely than any other local group that has so far been known.

The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.

. . . work even when I'm satisfied with it is never my child I love nor my servant I've brought to heel. It's always busy work I do with my left hand, and part of me watches grudging the wastes of a lifetime.

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

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

Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them.

We do not see the lens through which we look.

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