Claude Lévi-Strauss

The human mind is a bricoleur, making do with what it has.

The world is a symphony of differences.

The human condition is a paradox: we are free, yet constrained by our culture.

Truth is a matter of perspective.

The savage mind is not a primitive mind, but a mind that operates on different principles.

Myth is the raw material of thought, not a primitive form of science.

The incest taboo is not a natural phenomenon, but a cultural construct.

All human societies are structured by the same underlying logical principles.

History is a discontinuous process, not a linear progression.

The distinction between nature and culture is a fundamental one, but it is also a cultural construct.

The human mind is a 'bricoleur,' making do with the materials at hand.

There is no such thing as a 'primitive' society, only societies with different ways of organizing themselves.

The meaning of a myth is not in its content, but in its structure.

The unconscious is not a repository of repressed desires, but a structural principle of the mind.

Cuisine is a language in which society unconsciously translates its structures.

The world is made of signs, and we are constantly interpreting them.

The human mind is inherently classificatory.

The concept of progress is an illusion.

Totemism is not a religion, but a system of classification.

The anthropologist is a kind of 'super-observer,' trying to see the world from an outside perspective.