Quote

Our national experience in Americanizing millions of Europeans whose chief wish was to become Americans has been a heady wine which has made us believe, as perhaps no nation before us has ever believed, that, given the slimmest chance, all peoples will pattern themselves upon our model.

Ruth Benedict

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Ruth Benedict
Age: 61 †
Born: 1887
Born: June 5
Died: 1948
Died: September 17
Academic
Anthropologist
Biographer
Folklorist
Librarian
Poet
Sociologist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Ruth Fulton Benedict
Ruth Fulton
Experience
Whose
Chiefs
Given
Nation
Model
Become
Perhaps
Believed
Heady
Ever
Millions
Patterns
Assimilation
Made
Nations
Models
Europeans
Believe
Chance
Wine
Peoples
Upon
National
Pattern
Wish
Americans
Chief

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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
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The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.
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... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.
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It is my necessary breath of life to understand and expression is the only justification of life that I can feel without prodding.
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The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.
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Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior.
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What really binds men together is their culture, the ideas and the standards they have in common.
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The trouble is not that we are never happy-it is that happiness is so episodical.
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I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.
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Faith is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine.
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... oh, I long to prove myself by writing! The best seems to die in me when I give it up. It is the self I love--not this efficient, philanthropic self.
Ruth Benedict
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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
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No one culture has ever developed all human potentialities it has always selected certain capacities, mental and emotional and moral, and stifled others. Each culture is a system of values which may well complement the values in another.
Ruth Benedict
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The peoples of the earth are one family.
Ruth Benedict
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Society in its full sense . . . is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it.
Ruth Benedict
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Western civilization, because of fortuitous historical circumstances, has spread itself more widely than any other local group that has so far been known.
Ruth Benedict
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The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.
Ruth Benedict
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In a world that holds books and babies and canyon trails, why should one condemn oneself to live day-in, day-out with people one does not like, and sell oneself to chaperone and correct them?
Ruth Benedict
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. . . work even when I'm satisfied with it is never my child I love nor my servant I've brought to heel. It's always busy work I do with my left hand, and part of me watches grudging the wastes of a lifetime.
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Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.
Ruth Benedict