Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Fulton Benedictwas an American anthropologist and folklorist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth5 June 1887
CountryUnited States of America
Ruth Benedict quotes about
men details constitution
Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior.
religious art motivation
As a matter of history great developments in art have often been remarkably separate from religious motivation and use.
training body spirit
The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.
believe world desperation
I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.
thank-you gratitude jobs
Virtue begins when we dedicate ourselves actively to the job of gratitude.
careers mind needs
I haven't strength of mind not to need a career.
civilization society culture
Society in its full sense ... is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilization has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of an individual.
lonely peace war
... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.
community culture shapes
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.
war civilization faces
War is, we have been forced to admit, even in the face of its huge place in our civilization, an asocial trait.
strong kings freedom
The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings.they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.
science events negative
The prime lesson the social sciences can learn from the natural sciences is just this: that it is necessary to press on to find the positive conditions under which desired events take place, and that these can be just as scientifically investigated as can instances of negative correlation. This problem is beyond relativity.
writing self giving
... oh, I long to prove myself by writing! The best seems to die in me when I give it up. It is the self I love--not this efficient, philanthropic self.
men civilization white
The psychological consequences of this spread of white culture have been out of all proportion to the materialistic. This world-wide cultural diffusion has protected us as man had never been protected before from having to take seriously the civilizations of other peoples; it has given to our culture a massive universality that we have long ceased to account for historically, and which we read off rather as necessary and inevitable.