196 Quotes About Anthropology

In a real sense, the important question is never one of validity or truth. Truth exists in the realm of mathematics and in the philosophy of logic, not in perceptions of reality. For those who would understand the world about them, the question is not one of truth, but of utility. Do our investigations deepen our understanding, further our ability to ask more refined questions, and lead to better predictions of events? If so, then the research is justified. If not, it remains but sophistry.

These people know the reality and laugh at it. Such laughter has little concern with what is funny. It is often bitter and sometimes a little mad, for it is the laugh under the mask of tragedy, and also the laughter that masks tears. They are the same. It is the laughter of people who value love and friendship and plenty, who have lived with terror and death and hate." - , Return to Laughter (1954)

Scholars in a great many disciplines focus their studies on human beings. The main differences between the disciplines are not the objects of their study nor even the methods they use, but the points of view that guide their inquiries.

With the probable exception of the bond between husband and wife, every liaison between people in this society takes on some forms of this patron-client relationship

It has been said that when an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. But when a language dies, it is a whole world that comes to an end.

The basis of tourism is perception of otherness, of something being different from the usual.

Or could it be that there is something about globalisation itself that produces local culture, and promotes the constant formation of new forms of local identity, dress, cuisine, music, dance and language?

Anthropology studies the phenomenon of man, not simply man's mind, his body, evolution, origins, tools, art, or groups alone, but as parts or aspects of a general pattern, or whole. To emphasize this fact and make it a part of their ongoing effort, anthropologists have brought a general word into widespread use to stand for the phenomenon, and that word is culture.

Most of culture lies hidden and is outsidevoluntary control, making up the warp and weft of human existence. Even when small fragments of culture are elevated to awareness, they are difficult to change, not only because they are so personally experienced but because people cannotact or interact at all in any meaningful way except through the medium of culture.