Quotes from Bronislaw Malinowski

I, personally, am unable to accept any revealed religion, Christian or not.

The magnificent title of the Functional School of Anthropology has been bestowed on myself, in a way on myself, and to a large extent out of my own sense of irresponsibility.

[W.H.R.] Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology; I shall be the Conrad.

The final goal ... is to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.

The emotional attitude of man has a greater sway over custom than has reason. The main attitude of a native to other, alien groups is that of hostility and mistrust. The fact that to a native every stranger is an enemy is an ethnographic feature reported from all parts of the world.

yesterday, returning from Wawela I had some ethnological ideas, but I can't remember what they were.

freedom in its essence is the acceptance of the chains which suit you and for which you are suited, and of the harness in which you pull towards an end chosen and valued by yourself, and not imposed. It is not, and never can be, the absence of restrictions, obligations or law and of duty.

Beyond doubt, my love for her was one of the purest, most romantic things in my life. Friendship for her? If she were healthy, strong? No — her way of taking life would be impossible for me. Entirely impossible. We would have talked to each other as though shouting from different rooms. And yet I feel regrets. If I could cancel it all out, and never possess her soul?

If we insist that war is a fight between two independent and politically organized groups, war does not occur at the primitive level.

Tanto la magia como la religión surgen y funcionan en momentos de carácter emotivo: las crisis de la vida, los fracasos en empresas importantes, la muerte y la iniciación en los misterios de la tribu, el amor infortunado o el odio insatisfecho. Tanto la magia como la religión presentan soluciones ante esas situaciones y atolladeros, ofreciendo no un modo empírico de salir con bien de los tales, sino los ritos y la fe en el dominio de lo sobrenatural.

You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison.