Ashley Montagu quotes

Ashley Montagu was a British-American anthropologist and humanist, renowned for his work on race and the biological unity of humankind. His pioneering research challenged prevailing notions of racial differences and promoted the idea of equality. He advocated for human rights and contributed significantly to public discussions on science and society. Here are 23 of his quotes:

The idea is to die young as late as possible. (Ashley Montagu)
The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The family unit is the institution for the systematic production of mental illness. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The natural superiority of women is a biological fact, and a socially acknowledged reality. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The world is so full of wonderful things we should all, if we were taught how to appreciate it, be far richer than kings. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The doctor has been taught to be interested not in health but in disease. What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice. View quote
Ashley Montagu
[C]ircumcision, an archaic ritual mutilation that has no justification whatever and no place in a civilized society. View quote
Ashley Montagu
By virtue of being born to humanity, every human being has a right to the development and fulfillment of his potentialities as a human being. (Ashley Montagu)
The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What happens is that the family 'gets together' alone. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. View quote
Ashley Montagu
One goes through school, college, medical school and one's internship learning little or nothing about goodness but a good deal about success. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Girls marry for love. Boys marry because of a chronic irritation that causes them to gravitate in the direction of objects with certain curvilinear properties. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Hell has been described as a pocket edition of Chicago. View quote
Ashley Montagu
The cultured man is an artist, an artist in humanity. View quote
Ashley Montagu
There have been some medical schools in which somewhere along the assembly line, a faculty member has informed the students, not so much by what he said but by what he did, that there is an intimate relation between curing and caring. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Among both the Northern and Eastern Hamites are to be found some of the most beautiful types of humanity. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. (Ashley Montagu)
It is work, work that one delights in, that is the surest guarantor of happiness. But even here it is a work that has to be earned by labor in one's earlier years. One should labor so hard in youth that everything one does subsequently is easy by comparison. View quote
Ashley Montagu
Bigotry and science can have no communication with each other, for science begins where bigotry and absolute certainty end. The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof. Let us never forget that tyranny most often springs from a fanatical faith in the absoluteness of one's beliefs. View quote
Ashley Montagu