Ruth Benedict

The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.

No man can thoroughly participate in any culture unless he has been brought up in it from infancy.

Culture is the great storehouse of the past, the great laboratory of the future.

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.

The most important fact about culture is its diversity.

The cultural pattern of any civilization is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action.

We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

Custom is a more ultimate sanction of behavior than any religious or ethical absolute.

The cultural pattern of a society is as much a matter of its emotional and intellectual bent as of its material equipment.

The study of custom is the study of the forms of behavior that are characteristic of any given society.

The great cultural inventions have been those that have made it possible for man to live in a wider range of environments.

The cultural patterns of a society are not merely a collection of discrete traits, but are integrated into a coherent whole.

No culture has yet achieved its full potential.

The most important thing about a culture is its ethos.

The individual is a product of his culture, but he also shapes it.

The study of anthropology is a study of human possibilities.

The concept of the normal is itself a cultural construct.

Tolerance is the one virtue that is indispensable in a world of diverse cultures.

The world is wide, and there is room for many kinds of people and many kinds of cultures.

The great lesson of anthropology is that human nature is not fixed, but is infinitely malleable.