196 Quotes About Anthropology

These hapless livers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers.

Belonging, after all, is a particular kind of relation, one that arises amidst subjective experiences of mutual connection.

The technology is the independent variable, the social system the dependent variable. Social, systems are therefore determined by systems of technology; as the latter change, so do the former.

The classical anthropological question, What is man?—"how like an angel, this quintessence of dust!"—is not now asked by anthropologists. Instead, they commence with a chapter on Physical Anthropology and then forget the whole topic and go on to Culture.

No human utterance could be seen as innocent. Any set of words could be analysed to reveal not just an individual but a historical consciousness at work.

Education, government, health care, and science are increasingly driven by the philosophies of financial maximization. Institutions that had previously been focused on a range of outcomes—knowledge, service, care, discovery—are increasingly measured by just one: money.

Harvest" is a deep and meaningful exploration of the complexities regarding the origins of the human race as well as the intentions of an alien species.

The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.

There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts.