Ruth Benedict

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

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

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

“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.”

“I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.”

“Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. (...) Even when she was winning, her civilian statesmen, her High Command, and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments; it was pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit.”

“Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”