Ruth Benedict quotes

Ruth Benedict was an influential American anthropologist known for her pioneering work in the field of cultural anthropology. Her landmark book, "Patterns of Culture," explored how societies shape the personalities and behaviors of individuals. She helped shape the discipline and inspired future generations of anthropologists. Here are 19 of her quotes:

We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.

Ruth Benedict

Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.

Ruth Benedict

Racism is the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenitial superiority.

Ruth Benedict

The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers.

Ruth Benedict

I haven't strength of mind not to need a career.

Ruth Benedict

In world history, those who have helped to build the same culture are not necessarily of one race, and those of the same race have not all participated in one culture. In scientific language, culture is not a function of race.

Ruth Benedict

Our children are not individuals whore rights and tastes are casually respected from infancy, as they are in some primitive societies . . . . They are fundamentally extension of our own egos and give a special opportunity for the display of authority.

Ruth Benedict

No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.

Ruth Benedict

I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.

Ruth Benedict

Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.

Ruth Benedict

The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists.

Ruth Benedict

I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.

Ruth Benedict

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

Ruth Benedict

The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good, and against some greatly scorned evil.

Ruth Benedict

A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.

Ruth Benedict

Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.

Ruth Benedict

If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

Ruth Benedict