Quotes from Ruth Benedict

Such men will never know the added love of their culture which comes from a knowledge of other ways of life.

Every culture, every era, exploits some few out of a great number of possibilities [of traditional institutions]. Changes may be very disquieting, and involve great losses, but this is due to the difficulty of change itself, not to the fact that our age and country has hit upon the one possible motivation under which human life can be conducted.

A moral code was good for the Chinese whose inferior natures required such artificial means of restraint.

It would be truer to say that the citizens' self-respect, in the two countries, is tied up with different attitudes; in our country it depends on his management of his own affairs and in Japan it depends on repaying what he owes to accredited benefactors.

One can hardly find elsewhere than in Japan techniques of mysticism pursued without the reward of the consummating mystic experience and appropriated by warriors to train them for hand-to-hand combat.

At all events, there can be no reasonable doubt that one of the most effective ways in which to deal with the staggering burden of psychopathic tragedies in America at the present time is by means of an educational program which fosters tolerance in society and a kind of self-respect and independence…

The Japanese, she argues, are unusually sensitive to the opinion of others. Shame comes from not living up to social obligations. You can feel guilty about a crime that goes unnoticed. Shame depends on the observation of others.

You owed him absolute obedience because you were Japanese.

The typical Japanese swing of mood is from intense dedication to intense boredom

For in Japan the constant goal is honor. It is necessary to command respect. The means one uses to that end are tools one takes up and then lays aside as circumstances dictate.

Shame cultures therefore do not provide for confessions, even to the gods. They have ceremonies for good luck rather than for expiation.

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

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

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

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

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.

The arrogance of race prejudice is an arrogance which defies what is scientifically known of human races.

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.

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.

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

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.

From the moment of his birth the customs into which [an individual] is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture.

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

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.