Quotes from Claude Levi-Strauss

No contact with savage Indian tribes has ever daunted me more than the morning I spent with an old lady swathed in woolies who compared herself to a rotten herring encased in a block of ice.

I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty.

Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor anyone in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.

The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.

How can my old photographs fail to create in me a feeling of emptiness and sorrow? They make me acutely aware that this second deprivation will be final this time.

Our system is the height of absurdity, since we treat the culprit both as a child, so as to have the right to punish him, and as an adult, in order to deny him consolation.

The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

Natural man did not precede society, nor is he outside it.

either I can be like some traveler of the olden days, who was faced with a stupendous spectacle, all, or almost all, of which eluded him, or worse still, filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a modern traveler, chasing after the vestiges of a vanished reality....A few hundred years hence, in this same place another traveler, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see.

Cea mai primitiv? cultur? este întotdeauna o cultur? adult? ÅŸi, prin însuÅŸi acest lucru, incompatibil? cu manifest?rile infantile care pot fi observate în cea mai înalt? civilizaÅ£ie.

Antérieur à l'évolutionnisme biologique, théorie scientifique, l'évolutionnisme social n'est, trop souvent, que le maquillage faussement scientifique d'un vieux problème philosophique dont il n'est nullement certain que l'observation et l'induction puissent un jour fournir la clef. (p.20)

kültürel çeÅŸitlilik olgusu yads?n?r; yaÅŸam?m?z? düzenleyen normlara uymayan ne varsa kültürün d???na, doÄŸaya at?lmas? yeÄŸlenir.

Nowadays, being an explorer is a trade, which consists not, as one might think, in discovering hitherto unknown facts after years of study, but in covering a great many miles and assembling lantern-slides or motion pictures, preferably in colour, so as to fill a hall with an audience for several days in succession.

Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield up their treasures untarnished. A proliferating and overexcited civilization has broken the silence of the seas once and for all. The perfumes of the tropics and the pristine freshness of human beings have been corrupted by a busyness with dubious implications, which mortifies our desires and dooms us to acquire only contaminated memories.

La fraternité, Messieurs, réclame pour son exercice une certaine médiocrité démographique.

For everything is history: What was said yesterday is history, what was said a minute ago is history. But, above all, one is led to misjudge the present, because only the study of historical development permits the weighing and evalua­ tion of the interrelationships among the components of the present- day society.

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.

Ama diÄŸer yandan, "herkes kendi al???k olmad??? ÅŸeye barbarl?k der". Oysa ne kadar acayip, sars?c?, hatta baÅŸkald?rt?c? görünürse görünsün, baÄŸlam?na yerleÅŸtirilirse, iyi yönlendirilen bir akl?n aç?klayamayaca?? inanç ya da örf ve âdet yoktur.

BaÅŸka kültürlerden âdet alma bir olgudur; ama al?nan, sebeplerin tamam?n? beraberinde getirmez. Ä°thal edilen al??kanl?k özümsenmez, daha ziyade katalizör rolü oynar; yani sadece varl???yla, ikinci ortamda olas? hâlde zaten mevcut olan benzer bir al??kanl???n tezahürüne yol açar.

Alas, it is an illusion to suppose that the invasion of one element disencumbers another.

The primary function for writing as a means of communication is to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings

I don't have the feeling that I write my books. I have the feeling that my books get written through me and once they have got across me I feel empty and nothing is left.